MMR Stats

[mkmoro311]

A friend of mine wanted my thoughts on this statement. He is for Vaxing and is always trying to prove me wrong. can you tell me if this info is accurate and give me info to pass along to him!

As far as that risk: let's take the MMR Vax for instance, the stats are that between 5 and 15 % of kids who get the vax have a mild reaction (mild fever usually less than 24 hrs and injection site soreness) However, only one in one MILLION have a severe allergic reaction. Meanwhile, non vaxed kids are 35 times more likely to get measles than vaxed kids and 1 in every 1000 cases of measles results in encephalitis and either brain damage or hearing loss. So, hmm....1 in a million vs. 1 in 1000. In 2008, there were more measles cases in the first 3 months than there were the entire year before -as the vax rate declines, the rate of infection increases. By 7 mos into 2008, there were 7 outbreaks as opposed to the usual one per year and 93% of those affected were non-vaxed.

[Marnica]

I would start by pointing out that the 1 in 1000 number refers to the ENTIRE world, not just the US. It is common knowledge that mealses is much harder on children who are living in squalor, are malnourished and vitamin A deficient.

As for the reactions to the MMR, since the vast majority of "reactions' are denied to even be reactions by a doctor then they are obviously not being counted. The numbers come from licensing safety studies so mild reactions such as swelling and fever aer usually captured as they happen immediately. Since they do not look for reactions that happen after 14 days (I think), than anything experienced after this time frame is immediately dismissed and "cooincidental". I think severe allergic reactions like anapyaltic shock IS rare, but I don't think that is what worried most non-vaxing parents about the MMR.

As for the numbers of measles cases increasing due to lower vax rates, yes that is probably true, however if you look at the WHO's website you will see that historically outbreaks of measles do not neccesarlly correlate to vax coverage. Some date is missing but:

In 1986 the vax coverage for measles was 98% with 6,282 cases of measles reported. 1988 there were 3,396 cases of measles reported and the vax coverage was 98% still (half the cases of the year before yet the vax rate remained the same)..... in 1992 the vax rate plummeted to 83% and there were only 2,231 cases reported. the following year low rates again at 84% with only 312 cases reported.

[Sileree]

Also its not 1 in a million kids, its 1 in a million doses therefore the risk is 1 in 500,000 since kids get two shots.

[medusaatemydog]

Considering the EXTREME conflict of interest between CDC WHO NIH AND FDA I consider much of thier information is skewed, biased (to sell more), and riddled with conflict of interest.
The fact that i know so many children w/autism, my son had a reaction (while it was not deadly it was something that i feel was an obvious threat), and the fact that everyday i meet or read about someone else having a problem, and more and more people are not afraid to mention it because they are beginning to realize they are not the only ones that this has happened to(unlike what the doctors will preach to you because if you stop vaccinating the pediatricians will have no patients and no money and the pharma co will loose BILLIONS of your taxpayer dollars and patronage), and because HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of parents are communicating and seeing a dangerous pattern of the erosion of our rights, informed consent, threat to our families, corruption, conflict of interest, and the list is getting bigger every day.
I can actually notice a pattern that the pharmecutical companies are battling noncompliance by defamation and trampling civil and constitutional rights, and using coersion more intensively to get compliance... that is unethical and extreme. No one anywhere on this planet should have to submit thier bodies to a corporation for any reason, noone should fear being medicated against thier will... and this is exactly what is happening. They also will turn a population of people against each other based on nothing but skewed and conflicted data and fear ...

THe politics on how pharma operates alone are enough of a reason they should be barred from lobbying government!!! If we needed pharmecuticals we should be free to choose such a thing...but we are being forced and they are rewriting our rights to life, to our bodies...they have no business doing what they are doing..it's an unimaginably corrupted bearucracy.

[Sileree]

A Closer Look at the CDC’s Statistics on Measles Complications and Deaths

- The complication rates above were calculated using cases from all age groups between the years 1985-1992.

[CDC. The Pink Book, Chapter 10.]

- Measles is more severe in infants, young children and adults, and "milder in school-age children (around ages 5-15 years)" according to the CDC.

- The epidemiology of cases has changed since the 1960s. Many cases occur in those under 5 and over 15 years-old in whom the disease is more dangerous.

Two examples of this:

- From 1988-1992, "more than half of patients were younger than 5 years; the highest incidence was among infants younger than 12 months." Another 5% were in those above the age of 20.

["Measles Epidemic from Failure to Immunize." Western Journal of Medicine.]

-- In most of the years between 2001 to 2007 in Europe, about only 35-45% of cases were among children 5-14 years (lowest 28%).

[“Measles Annual Reports.” EUVAC.net, European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.]

- Prior to 1963, "the highest incidence was among 5 to 9 year-olds, who generally accounted for more than 50% of reported cases” and “more than 90% had measles by age 15."

[The Pink Book.]

- Overall incidence rates were highest for Hispanics and blacks and lowest for non-Hispanic whites. Over 30% of cases in these years were in California, where the epidemic "centered in low-income Hispanic communities in southern and central California."

["Measles Epidemic from Failure to Immunize."]

- Rates of complications, admission to hospital, and death were "surprisingly high" even to the authors of research into the epidemic. The high frequency of serious illness and complications compared with what has been recorded for other measles epidemics in developed countries was seen to be "remarkable".

["Measles Epidemic from Failure to Immunize."]

- Out of some 55,000 cases, a total of 123 deaths were reported, with 49% of deaths among children younger than 5 years of age.

["Measles Epidemic from Failure to Immunize."]

- A 1993 study showed that 72% of all measles cases in the U.S. requiring hospitalization are deficient in vitamin A. The greater the deficiency, the worse the complications and higher the probability of dying.

[“Subclinical Vitamin A Deficiency: A Potentially Unrecognized Problem in the United States.” Pediatric Nursing.]

- "Several studies show that when patients with measles are given vitamin A supplements, their complication rates and chances of dying are significantly reduced. For example, as early as 1932 doctors used cod-liver oil - high in vitamin A - to treat measles and lower mortality by 58 percent... during the mid-1980s new studies demonstrated an increased risk of diarrhea, respiratory disease, and death in children with mild vitamin A deficiency."

["Vaccine Safety Manual for Concerned Families and Health Practitioners" by Neil Z. Miller. I have this book, I can get studies for this if you need them.]

- Standard treatment protocols may be detrimental as well. The relentless suppression of fever in children with measles is widely practiced because few doctors know that fever reducers such as Tylenol increase the risk of death.

- "In a study conducted in Afghanistan, 200 children with measles were divided into two groups... members of one group received aspirin to lower fever. The study revealed that children receiving the antipyretics had prolonged illness, more diarrhea, ear infections and respiratory ailments, such as pneumonia, bronchitis and laryngitis, and significantly greater mortality rates."

["Vaccine Safety Manual".]

- Measles epidemics in other developed nations both historically and recently have significantly less complications and deaths than the U.S. did in the epidemic between 1988-1992.

- Between the years 2002-2007, among children 5-14 years of age, the rate of encephalitis ranged from 1 in 2,592 to 1 in 7,723.

[EUVAC.net]

- In 1954, the mortality from measles was reported to be 1 in 10,000.

[“Modern Measles.” American Journal of Medical Science.]

- From 1971-1975, when there were between 100-150,000 cases a year in the U.K., there were between 10-18 deaths a year in previously normal children, which is a death rate ranging from 1 in 7,599-14,307, or an average of 1 in 9,524.

- From 1970-1983, if counting both deaths in both previously normal and previously abnormal children, the death rate of measles varied between 0.9-2.3 per 10,000 cases, with an average of 1.5, or 1 in 7,500.

[“Deaths from Measles in England and Wales, 1970-83.” British Medical Journal.]

- Using surveillance reports from Western Europe, from 2001-2007 there were 4 deaths in normal children under 20 and 36,779 cases, or a death rate of 1 in 9,194 children.

[EUVAC.net.]

This is comparable with the approximate death rate according to the CDC in the 1960s. There were an estimated 3-4 million cases and around 400 deaths per year, which equals a death rate of 1 in 7,500-1 in 10,000.

[The Pink Book.]

Therefore, the risk of complications as portrayed by the CDC are not a fair estimate of the real risk posed to a healthy child who is nursed through the illness properly.

[mkmoro311]

He won't consider any stats that don't come from the CDC!

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by mkmoro311

He won't consider any stats that don't come from the CDC!

Thw WHO isn't good enough for him?? If he is that close minded I wouldn't even bother trying to "convince" him of anything because no matter what you show him, he has already made up his mind.

[poppan]

I'm very interested in this topic as I am weighing whether or not to get my 2 year old twins vax'd for measles right now.

My first reaction is: when he says "1 in a million vs. 1 in 1000" that is a faulty comparison. If you get the shot, you have a 1 in a million chance of getting a severe side effect (I know it is probably much higher, but for the duration of this argument I will accept his number). However, if you do not get the shot, you do NOT have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting brain damage or dying. That's because you may never get measles in the first place. So he needs to take into account what the chances are that you will even get measles, then he can apply his 1 in 1000 statistic.

(BTW, I can't find anything on hearing loss being caused by measles, as your friend stated. I saw hearing loss associated with MMR vaccine though. That might be because mumps and rubella can cause hearing loss?)

Now I am going to take you through my layperson’s projection of an unvax’d child’s chance of dying or sustaining serious injury from measles. I don’t know if I’m doing this right, so I’m going to be detailed and spell everything out. I’m also going to err on the conservative side – giving the pro-vax side a large benefit of the doubt. All my numbers are from the CDC pink book 10th edition.

First, some history. The last big outbreak in the US was in 1989-1991. There were 55,622 reported cases,* "mostly among the unvaccinated". Of those 56K reported cases, 123 people died. That's higher than your friend’s 1 in 1000 number -- it's 2.2 deaths per 1,000 reported cases. Roughly half (49%) of those who died were under 5 y.o. The biggest cause of death for children is pneumonia, not acute encephalitis -- 60% of child deaths are from pneumonia. I thought that was really interesting because you never hear that anywhere. I guess acute encephalitis sounds much scarier than something as mundane as pneumonia.
* For reference, US population was 248,709,873 according to the 1990 census.

Now, my unscientific projection. Let’s say we have an outbreak the same size as the ’89-’91 one. We would have ~67,404 reported cases (22 per 100,000 applied to current population size of 306,382,859). If we apply the same death rate of 2.2 per 1000, that's 148 deaths. I don't know how many are brain damaged (I think I read that acute encephelitis has a 15% fatality rate and a 25% brain damage rate), but I think it's more than fair to just double that number and say approx. 300 deaths or permanent brain damage.

So what is my unvax'd child's chance of dying or suffering permanent brain damage from measles, in an outbreak of this size?

We can’t just take 300 and divide it into the total population number, because that does not account for the fact that an unvax’d person is “35 times more likely” (according to your friend) to get measles than a vax’d person.

If I assume that 1% of the population (just over 3 million people) is not vaxed, and that all 300 (not just 93% of the 300) who die or sustain serious injury from measles are not vaxed, then I think the chance of an unvax'd person dying/injured from measles is 10 in 100,000 (300 divided by 3 million).

If I assume that 5% of the population (15.3 million people) is not vaxed, then the chance of an unvax'd person dying/injured from measles is 2 in 100,000 (300 divided by 15 million).

If I assume that 20% of the population (61.3 million people) is not vaxed, then it’s <0.5 in 100,000 (300 divided by 61 million).

I have no idea what the current measles vax rate is. In the ’89-’91 outbreak, CDC says in some of the outbreak areas, the vax rate was as low as 50%. You can see from the above that the higher the no vax rate, the better the statistic sounds for no vaxers because you can divide the death/injury rate into a larger pool of people.

In any case – as best as I can figure, if I accept the 1 in 1 million vaccine injury rate, then my child is better off being vax’d. Although I do not necessarily accept that vaccine injury rate, I am seriously considering getting my kids vax’d for measles because a 1 in 500 death rate (2.2 per 1000 reported cases) makes measles a pretty serious disease for me. I know the true rate may be lower as not all cases get reported. But still. Out of all the shots, this is the one I’m considering most seriously so far.

Well thanks for reading with me, if anyone made it to the end!

(EDITED to add Thank you to Sirelee for the stats from other sources... 1 in 9,000 death rate sounds much better and that is from recent data (2001-2007 in Western Europe). I think I might have just flopped back to the no-measles-vax side for my kids...

[Sileree]

Originally Posted by mkmoro311

He won't consider any stats that don't come from the CDC!

Wow. Medical journals don't count?