MEASLES: THE DISEASE AND THE VACCINE

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MEASLES by Dr Mendelsohn

Measles, also called rubeola or 'English measles, " is a contagious viral

disease that can 'be contracted by touching an object used by an

infected person. At the onset the victim feels tired, has a slight fever

and pain in the head and back. His eyes redden and he may be sensitive

to light. The fever rises until about the third or fourth day, when it

reaches 103-104 degrees. Sometimes small white spots can be seen inside

the mouth, and a rash of small pink spots appears below the hair line

and behind the ears.

This rash spreads downward to cover the body in about 36 hours. The pink

spots may run together but fade away in about three or four days.

Measles is contagious for seven or eight days, beginning three or four

days be-fore the rash appears. Consequently, if one of your children

contracts the disease, the others probably will have been exposed to it

before you know the first I child is sick.

No treatment is required for measles other than bed rest, fluids to

combat possible dehydration from fever, and calamine lotion or

cornstarch baths to relieve the itching. If the child suffers from

photophobia, the blinds in his bedroom should be lowered to darken the

room. However, contrary to the popular myth, there is no danger of

permanent blindness from this disease. A vaccine to prevent measles is

an-other element of the MMR inoculation given in early childhood.

Doctors maintain that the inoculation is necessary to prevent measles

encephalitis, which they say occurs about once in 1,000

cases. After decades of experience with measles, I question this

statistic, and so do many other pediatricians. The incidence of 1/1,000

may be accurate for children who live in conditions of poverty and

malnutrition, but in the middle-and upper-income brackets, if one

excludes simple sleepiness from the measles itself, the incidence of

true encephalitis is probably more like 1/10,900 or 1/100,000.

After frightening you with the unlikely possibility of measles

encephalitis, your doctor can rarely be counted on to tell you of the

dangers associated with the vaccine he uses to prevent it. The measles

vaccine is associated with encephalopathy and with a series of other

complications such as SSPE (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis), which

causes hardening of the. brain and is in-variably fatal.

Other neurologic and sometimes fatal conditions associated with the

measles vaccine include ataxia (inability to coordinate muscle

movements), mental retardation, aseptic meningitis, seizure disorders,

and hemiparesis (paralysis affecting one side of the body). Secondary

complications associated with the vaccine may be even more frightening.

They include encephalitis, juvenile-onset diabetes, Reye's syndrome, and

multiple

sclerosis.

I would consider the risks associated with measles vaccination

unacceptable even if there were convincing evidence that the vaccine

works. There isn't. While there has been a decline in the incidence of

the disease, it began long before the vaccine was introduced. In 1958

there were about 800,000 cases of measles in the United States, but by

1962-the year before a vaccine appeared-the number of cases had dropped

by 300,000. During the next four years, while children were being

vaccinated with an ineffective and now abandoned " killed virus " vaccine,

the number of cases dropped another 300,000. In 1900 there were 13.3

measles deaths per 100,000 population. By 1955, before the first measles

shot, the death rate had declined 97.7 percent to only 0.03 deaths per

100,000.

Those numbers alone are dramatic evidence that measles was disappearing

before the vaccine was introduced. If you fail to find them sufficiently

convincing, consider this: in a 1978 survey of thirty states, more than

half of the children who contracted measles had been adequately

vaccinated. Moreover, according to the World Health Organization, the

chances are about fifteen times greater that measles will be contracted

by those vaccinated for them than by those who are not.

" Why, " you may ask, " in the face of these facts, do doctors continue to

give the shots? " The answer may lie in an episode that occurred in

California fourteen years after the measles vaccine was introduced. Los

Angeles suffered a severe measles epidemic during that year, and parents

were urged to vaccinate all children six months of age and older-despite

a Public Health Service warning that vaccinating children below the age

of one year was useless and potentially harmful.

Although Los Angeles doctors responded by routinely shooting measles

vaccine into very kid they could get their hands on, several local

physicians familiar with the suspected problems of immunologic failure

and " slow virus " dangers chose not to vaccinate their own infant

children. Unlike their patients, who weren't told, they realized that

" slow viruses " found in all live vaccines, and particularly in the

measles vaccine, can hide in human tissue for years. They may emerge

later in the form of encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, and as potential

seeds for the development and growth of cancer.

One Los Angeles physician who refused to vaccinate his own

seven-month-old baby said: " I'm worried about what happens when the

vaccine virus may not only offer little protection against measles but

may also stay around in the body, working in a way we don't know much

about. " His concern about the possibility of these consequences for his

own child, however, did not cause him to stop vaccinating his infant

patients. He rationalized this contradictory behaviour with the comment

that " As a parent, I have the

luxury of making a choice .for my child. As a physician... legally and

professionally I have to accept the recommendations of the profession,

which is what we also had to do with the whole Swine flu business. "

Perhaps it is time that lay parents and their children are granted the

same luxury that doctors and their children enjoy.

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