by Barbara Loe Fisher
On Sept. 12, 2013, public health officials at the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) called a press conference to announce that
vaccination rates among pre-school children are “high and stable” and
“less than 1% are unvaccinated.” 1
More than 90 percent of American toddlers have gotten a measles
containing MMR shot by age three, along with many doses of 10 other
government recommended vaccines.
159 Measles Cases Reported This Year in U.S.
But health officials warned there have been 159 cases of measles
reported so far this year, the second highest number of measles cases
reported in one year since 2000. They put the blame on 92 unvaccinated
Americans diagnosed with measles who had “philosophical objections” to
vaccination, such as orthodox Jews in New York City and Christians
attending a church in Texas, which they described as “clusters of people
with like-minded beliefs leading them to forego vaccines.” 2 3 4
There have been no measles-related deaths in the U.S. this year;
however one government official said that 160,000 people around the
world die from measles every year and the infection is “literally a
plane ride away.” She warned that “the measles virus can hang out in the
air and if you are in the same waiting room as someone with measles you
will get measles if you never had it.” 5
Americans Born Before 1957 Have Natural Immunity
In the interest of full disclosure, I should acknowledge that when I
was a child I did get measles and so did my sister and brother and all
my friends. It started off with a fever, runny nose, sore throat and
white spots inside our mouths and then an itchy red rash on our faces
that spread all over and I remember wearing sunglasses in the house
because the light hurt my eyes. My parents and grandparents and their
sisters and brothers also had measles when they were children. When I
was growing up in the 1950’s, measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox
were infections we all experienced but our parents didn’t worry about
those childhood diseases like they worried about polio.
Americans born before 1957 have naturally acquired immunity to
measles and we passed antibodies on to our babies when they were born to
protect them from measles during the first year of life. Because
naturally acquired measles antibodies are different from vaccine
antibodies, young vaccinated Moms today cannot give longer lasting
naturally acquired measles antibodies to their newborns. 6
Things have definitely changed in the past 60 years.
American Children Highly Vaccinated
In August and September, the CDC published annual reports that once
again confirmed American children are among the most highly vaccinated
in the world. 7 8 9 In 2012, 95% of children entering kindergarten had gotten two
MMR shots and so had more than 90% of high school students. About 1.8%
of kindergarten children had a medical or personal belief exemption to
vaccination on file with schools.
Bottom line: 95% of the approximately 75 million children under age 18 10
have gotten two doses of MMR vaccine and there is also a high measles
vaccination rate among young adults in their 20’s and mid-30’s because,
since 1981, 95% of all children entering kindergarten have received at
least one dose of MMR vaccine and three or more doses of diphtheria,
tetanus, pertussis and polio containing vaccines. 11
Now let’s take a look at what measles incidence and death rates
looked like before and after the first measles vaccine was licensed in
1963.
Infections & Vaccine Reactions: Misdiagnosis & Underreporting
It is important to remember that, like B. pertussis whooping cough
and other infectious diseases, measles has natural cyclical increases
and decreases every few years in populations.12 13 Plus, not all pertussis 14 15 or measles infections 16 17
are diagnosed correctly by doctors and reported to government health
officials and the same is true for diagnosis and reporting of vaccine
reactions, injuries and deaths. 18 19 20
Before Vaccine: Millions of Measles Cases Not Reported
Before measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, the CDC admits there
was massive underreporting of measles cases and that “because virtually
all children acquired measles, the number of measles cases probably
approached 3.5 million per year (.i.e., an entire birth cohort). ” 21 Other doctors say it was more like 5 million cases of measles occurring every year. 22 In 1960, three years before the
first measles vaccine was put on the market in the U.S., there were
about 442,000 reported measles cases and 380 related deaths 23 24 among 3.5 to 5 million Americans.
After Vaccine: Decreases & Increases in Measles Case Reports
After 17 years of giving children measles vaccine, in 1980 there
were only 13,500 reported measles cases and 11 related deaths. 25
But in 1990, about 28,000 measles cases and 64 deaths were reported in a
population in which 95% of children entering kindergarten had gotten
one MMR shot that public health officials had promised parents would
give their children life long immunity to measles. 26
So the CDC added a second MMR shot to the child vaccine schedule and, by 2005, there were only 66 cases of measles reported. 27 However, in 2008 and 2011, there were a total of 362 reported measles cases, even as there were no deaths. 28
This brings us to the question of why there is so much publicity
today about 159 measles cases identified in the U.S. this year in a
population of 316 million.
Global Measles Eradication Endgame: 2015 - 2020
Well, what a lot of Americans do not know but need to know is that
the World Health Organization is partnering with government health
officials, multi-national pharmaceutical corporations and medical trade
groups in a global measles eradication campaign patterned after the
smallpox and polio eradication campaigns of the 20th century. The goal is to eradicate measles (and rubella) from the earth by 2015 or at the latest by 2020. 29 30
Two Doses of MMR for Two Billion Children
In order to accomplish that goal in the next two to seven years,
the plan is to make sure that at least 95% or more of the world’s two
billion children 31 get two doses of MMR vaccine.
With a dose of MMR vaccine costing the CDC $20 to purchase from Merck while private pediatricians pay $56 a dose, 32 the cost of waging a global measles eradication campaign is astronomical. 33
Europe: Few Countries Mandate MMR
In Europe where many countries mandate polio vaccine and not MMR or other vaccines, 34 there have been tens of thousands of measles cases reported over the past decade.35 36
European health officials say that individuals with religious beliefs,
as well as many “middle class people” using holistic health care
alternatives for staying well, are resisting MMR vaccine promotion
campaigns. 37
Public health doctors see the trend by educated consumers in many
developed countries to move away from using lots of prescription drugs
and vaccines 38 39 40 as a threat to infectious disease eradication programs.
Public Health Doctors: How Far Will They Go?
The question is: How far will public health doctors go to reach
their goal of eradicating measles, rubella and many other infections
with the mandated use of vaccines? 41 4243 44
We have seen a militarization of the public health system in the past century 45 to justify global vaccination campaigns to eradicate smallpox and polio.46 47 48 49
After Sept. 11, 2001, Congress and state legislatures granted greatly
expanded police powers to government health officials to detain,
quarantine and force vaccine use without the voluntary, informed consent
of citizens whenever government officials declare a “public health
emergency.” 50 51 52
A War on Values & Beliefs
The public conversation about vaccination, health and autonomy has become ugly and divisive in the 21st century because the War on Disease has been turned into a War on Values and Beliefs. 53 54 55 56 57 58
And it is making many people afraid and distrustful of doctors and
government health officials using threats and sanctions to enforce
one-size-fits-all vaccine policies and laws that force them to get not
just two doses of MMR vaccine but dozens of doses of other vaccines. 59 60 61 62 63 64
Will The Oppression Escalate?
Is the current government-endorsed criticism of the values and
spiritual beliefs of unvaccinated Americans, who have been diagnosed
with measles, just the first step toward even more oppression? Will it
escalate into what we witnessed in 2007, when parents failing to show
proof their children had gotten a chickenpox shot or hepatitis B shot,
were threatened with stiff fines and jail time before being summoned by
government officials to a Maryland courthouse patrolled by armed police
with dogs to make sure their children got vaccinated? 65
I don’t think any of us know how far doctors working for government
or drug companies and medical trade groups will go to pit citizens
against each other in an effort to shun and punish anyone defending the
human right to exercise freedom of thought, belief, conscience and
informed consent to medical-risk taking, 66 which includes taking risks with liability free pharmaceutical products like vaccines. 67
Philosopher and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel has said “When
you take an idea or a concept and turn it into an abstraction, that
opens the way to take human beings and turn them, also, into abstractions. When human beings become abstractions, what is left?” 68
Biological, Genetic & Environmental Differences Among Us
When public health officials embrace the concept of eradicating an
infection from the world and achieving that goal means making sure that a
certain number of children have gotten a certain number of
vaccinations, it is very easy to turn children into abstractions and
forget that human beings are not all the same and do not all react the
same way to vaccines or infections.69 70 71 72There
are biological, genetic and environmental differences among us and that
is why some of us get an MMR shot or experience measles and do not
suffer complications while others of us do suffer complications and are
brain injured or die.73 74 75 76 77 78 79
When doctors cannot predict ahead of time who will be harmed by a vaccine 80 81
or an infectious disease and they cannot guarantee that those who have
been vaccinated are incapable of being infected or transmitting
infection, 82 83 84 85
the precautionary and informed consent principles should not be
eradicated from vaccine policies and laws just because public health
officials have decided to embark on yet another infection eradication
campaign.
The National Vaccine Information Center supports your civil and
human right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience and informed
consent to vaccination and make independent health care choices without
being tracked down, bullied and punished by anyone. Become informed
about measles and MMR vaccine and talk with one or more trusted health
care professionals before making an educated health care decision.
Go to NVIC.org to learn more and sign up for the online NVIC Advocacy Portal
to defend vaccine choices and exemptions in your state.
It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.
