Media Panic Over Measles Distracts From Real Threats to Kids’ Health and Safety

Measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, with one new case reported in Kentucky and two in New Jersey, are fueling media stories that the U.S. is poised for an epidemic.

by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D

Measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, with one new case reported in Kentucky and two in New Jersey, are fueling media stories that the U.S. is poised for an epidemic.

On Wednesday, Texas health authorities announced the death of a child who tested positive for measles, setting off a spate of media reports blaming the measles outbreaks on declining vaccination rates.

However, some doctors warn the situation isn’t as dire as the headlines suggest.

Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a pediatrician, said it is a tragedy anytime a child dies. But he also said there isn’t “enough information to know whether the child had an underlying medical condition, whether the child had measles and what diagnostic criteria were being used to make the diagnosis of measles.”

Palevsky said it remains unknown “what treatment the child received in the hospital that may or may not have had anything to do with the deterioration of this child’s health. More information is needed.”

Outlets like Vox, The Washington Post, and The New York Times warned that the outbreaks herald a coming “public health crisis” that will be made worse by the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has raised questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule, is now secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Some accused Kennedy of downplaying the news after he said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is watching what is happening and that measles outbreaks happen every year.

Should we panic over measles outbreaks?

Leana Wen, writing in the Post, said people aren’t alarmed enough about measles because they don’t see the illness often enough. She warned it is a dangerous disease with high hospitalization rates and serious long-term health consequences that may include immune system destruction and death.

However, according to a 2018 publication by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) measles is a respiratory disease characterized by a fever, a head cold, pink eye and a rash of small red and sometimes itchy bumps that can cover the body.

Complications from measles such as an ear infection, diarrhea, croup, or bronchopneumonia, can occur — and bronchopneumonia can be quite serious — but they are rare in developed countries like the U.S, the AAP said.

It is “self-limiting,” meaning that it goes away on its own. By 1962 — prior to the introduction of the first measles vaccine a year later — the CDC described measles as a disease with low mortality.

By that time, the death rate had declined 98% since the beginning of the century due to improvements in public health. It carried a hospitalization rate of 11.5 per 1,000 cases and a mortality rate of 0.2 per 1,000 cases. Parents and medical practitioners considered measles an inevitable stage of a child’s development.

“We have a forgotten history of measles,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Scientist Karl Jablonowski told The Defender. “The 1950s Vital Statistics report states, ‘measles are poorly reported because a large proportion of the cases are never seen by a physician.’ This, at a time when 600,000 annual reports of measles was normal.”

Despite Wednesday’s tragic reported death of a child in Texas, deaths from measles in the U.S. are extremely rare. Typically, people who die from measles have some other serious underlying condition.

Dr. Liz Mumper, a pediatrician, said it is “very uncommon” for a child to die from a measles infection in developed countries such as the U.S. that have access to clean water and good sanitation systems.

Although the CDC reports that the U.S. death rate from measles is 1 to 3 deaths out of every 1,000 reported cases, prior to the reported death on Wednesday in Texas, the last U.S. measles death was in a young immunocompromised woman in 2016. The last time a child died of measles in the U.S. was in 2003.

Hospitalization rates for measles are high, but that’s partly because people are often hospitalized to keep them isolated to stop transmission of the contagious illness, according to the CDC.

Treatment in hospitals typically involves keeping people hydrated and lowering their fevers.

“Effective treatments include vitamin A in high doses and attention to hydration status,” Mumper said. “Many natural methods to help the body fight viruses, like extra vitamin D and vitamin C, are effective but not widely recommended by mainstream medicine.”

Is the measles vaccine effective?

Most media reports blame the recent outbreak on unvaccinated people — mostly children — and claim the only way to resolve the crisis is to get the vaccination rate up to the professed target of 95% through mass vaccination campaigns.

This approach implies that without the measles vaccine, measles complications and deaths would be rampant.

CBS News suggested that if people can’t find their vaccination records or are worried about exposure, they should get a booster — because they are “safe and effective,” implying there’s no risk.

However, Mumper said it can’t generally be assumed that outbreaks are caused by unvaccinated people — cyclical outbreaks still occur even in populations, such as college students, with nearly 100% vaccination. The vaccine’s protection is not complete and wanes over time.

Measles vaccines come with a long list of serious side effects

The measles vaccine, like all vaccines, can cause serious side effects in some people, according to the author of “The Measles Book.”

Today, there are two measles vaccines available in the U.S. — Merck’s MMRII and GSK’s Priorix. Neither were safety-tested against a true placebo, according to pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas, co-author of “Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life.”

MMRII was tested against the vaccine components without the virus — which included the adjuvant — and Priorix was tested against the MMRII.

Merck’s label for MMRII, the most commonly given measles vaccine, reports that clinical trials and post-marketing studies identified a wide range of adverse reactions affecting almost every system in the body.

Examples include atypical measles and measles-type rashes, pancreatitis, thrombocytopenia, myalgia, respiratory illnesses like pneumonia, skin disorders, encephalitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, convulsions or seizures, syncope and many other possible reactions.

The possible side effects for Priorix are similar. During the drug’s trials, there were high rates of serious adverse events and emergency room visits. New onset of chronic diseases occurred in both groups.

“To any sane mind, that means both the MMRII used as placebo and the new Priorix are dangerous,” according to Thomas.

A series of studies by the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) conducted in the 1990s to 2000s found similar adverse effects associated with the MMR vaccines.

Since the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was established in 1990, there have been 115,849 adverse events associated with the measles vaccine reported, including 572 deaths.

All reports in VAERS are not necessarily verified and vary in completeness. However, underreporting is a known and serious disadvantage of the VAERS system. Researchers have found that the number of injuries reported to VAERS is less than 1%.

In addition to VAERS reports, many thousands of parents who saw their children regress into autism after taking the MMR vaccine have filed claims in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

Even though research shows a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the VICP denied those claims en masse — and that denial is used to justify the now-common claim that there is no link between vaccines and autism.

An ongoing lawsuit alleges that the U.S. Department of Justice committed fraud to cover up the potential link between vaccines and autism. The case is pending in federal court.

The vaccine ‘propaganda playbook’

Measles outbreaks in the U.S. happen every year, but only some of them make headlines.

Stories circulate periodically about measles outbreaks, blaming them on low vaccination rates. Often, these outbreaks and the news reports sensationalizing them are followed by changes in vaccine laws to eliminate vaccine exemptions.

“The Measles Book” calls this fearmongering used to drive policy changes a “highly effective ‘propaganda playbook.’”

“We’ve seen this playbook in California in 2015 and in New York in 2019,” CHD CEO Mary Holland said. “We know that Hawaii’s legislature currently has bills to repeal its religious exemption.”

Holland added:

“The measles repeal playbook is well-worn and has been effective in the past, not because of a real threat to children’s health, but rather in large part due to media hype from corporate funding and government fearmongering.”

In 2015, allegedly prompted by a measles outbreak at Disneyland — blamed on unvaccinated children and low vaccination rates — California passed a controversial bill, Senate Bill No. 277 (SB 277), which eliminated the “personal belief exemption” for mandatory vaccination.

The passage of SB 277 in 2015 made California the first state in nearly 35 years to eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions.

In 2019, following a measles outbreak in 2018-19 in Brooklyn and Rockland Counties in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation ending nonmedical exemptions from school vaccination requirements for children.

What’s really killing children today? It’s not measles.

Measles is not — and has never been — a leading cause of death, according to Jablonowski.

The most common cause of death in non-infant children in 2023 was assault by firearm (2.2 per 100,000), motor-vehicle accident (1.3 per 100,000), self-harm by hanging, strangulation and suffocation (0.9 per 100,000), suicide by firearm (0.7 per 100,000), accidental overdose (0.7 per 100,000), drowning (0.5 per 100,000).

Over the past decade, children have also faced increasing rates of anxiety and depression, stress, asthma, autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, obesity, and other chronic diseases, many of which can be linked to toxic exposures from pesticides, plastics, vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, water fluoridation, and electromagnetic radiation.

“Any childhood disease is scary, and measles can lead to complications like pneumonia,” Jablonowski said. “However, diseases like anxiety and depression, which are a serious threat to children’s health, do not have a Mayo clinic ‘self care’ section that begins with ‘take it easy,’” Jablonowski said.

“Any death of a child is tragic,” Holland said. “We grieve for this child and the child’s family. “That said, measles is not a grave threat to America’s children.”

Holland added:

“There are well-established protocols to treat it and healthy children can resolve a measles infection easily. This was the norm until 1963 when a single measles vaccine came into use. The notion that somehow Measles is a scourge among well-nourished children with sanitation is diverging on the absurd.

“The real threats to America’s children are chronic health conditions: allergies, asthma, autism, ADHD, bipolar, and on, and on and on. The media would do well to start focusing its attention on the real risks to America’s children.”