Measles: What’s the big deal?

Toronto Public Health has urged travellers to ensure they are vaccinated against measles with a combination of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine known as the MMR, as at least a dozen measles cases are being documented across the country.

Is this alarmism warranted? What do the statistics say regarding this once considered to be benign childhood illness?

Measles is described as an acute, viral, infectious disease that offers lifelong immunity after recovery from the disease, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Pink Book.

Symptoms include the typical measles rash, a fever of 103 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, runny nose and cough. The rash typically begins at the hairline and then spreads outward on the face and upper neck, before spreading downward on the torso and expanding to the hands and feet.

Approximately 30% of measles cases in the United States from 1987 to 2000 were reported to have one or more complications which, according to the Government of Canada, include diarrhea, otitis media (i.e. ear infection), pneumonia, encephalitis (brain swelling), subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (a fatal brain infection), and death.

Health columnist Andre Picard, who was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2023 for his dedication to parroting big pharma-influenced “public health practices,” has taken to social media to scaremonger Canadians regarding the handful of cases popping up across Canada.

In 1950, before a vaccine available, more than 55,000 Canadian children contracted #measles. It was the leading cause of blindness, deafness and 'mental retardation.' And more than 100 children died.
What is your point: That, in 2024, we should have more sick and dead children? https://t.co/RrO7CLdZZd

— André Picard (@picardonhealth) March 6, 2024

Picard hinted that those who question the MMR want more sick and dead children, which is kind of ironic coming from someone who supported administering 'safe and effective' novel injections into the arms of babies and children.

So what are the odds of getting sick, and dying, from measles complications?

The Government of Canada’s website dedicated to measles breaks down data showing the number of measles incidences per year from 1924 until 2023. In 1950, measles cases dropped dramatically. For some reason, the years directly before and after the measles vaccine was licensed in Canada in 1963 are unavailable.

What Picard did was cherry-pick a scaremongering stat during a time when cases were high, without sharing the relevant elements as to why cases dropped thereafter, a decade before the vaccine was licensed.

The chart shows a clear drop in cases around 1932 which coincides with the discovery of antibiotics, and again in the 1950s, which coincides with “remarkable growth in the sanitation industry in Canada” – including public potable water supply systems, sewage systems and water treatment plants.

Increased access to global food markets, fresh fruit, vegetables and other sources of nutrition cannot be downplayed here, either.

Especially as the government acknowledges that “Vitamin A deficiency is linked to delayed recovery and greater complications with measles,” going so far as to recommend “children diagnosed with measles be given 2 doses of vitamin A supplements.”

This is something that the mainstream media and public health seem to conveniently ignore and instead blindly promote vaccination above all else.

As mentioned, the live-virus vaccine for measles was first licensed in Canada in 1963. This was followed by the use of an inactive, or dead, virus vaccine in 1964 that was discontinued and switched back out for the live virus in 1970. Some say that this is because of the excessive amounts of injury and measles cases that occurred as a result, but because Canada conveniently didn’t record that data, no one can be sure.

However, the MMR vaccine as it exists today has the second-highest vaccine adverse events incidences reported in Canada, from January to June 2019, according to Statista.

But back to the 1950s – because not only were measles cases on the decline at least a decade before the vaccine came to market – deaths and complications as referenced by scaremongering Picard were at an all-time low, too.

According to vital statistics rates in the United States detailing the death rates for various afflictions from 1900 until 1960, the death rate for measles was almost flat by 1950. People may have been getting measles, but they certainly weren’t dying from it.

That same document puts the measles death rate at 0.2% of cases, by 1960.

in 1960, the population of the United States was 179,323,175. That same year, there were 441,703 measles cases reported – 0.2% of the population. Of that percentage, 0.2% would result in death. Which means that if the numbers are extrapolated to reflect the total population, the risk of death due to measles complications was a whopping 0.0004%.

By contrast the same document shows that the death rate for influenza infection in 1960 was 4.4%, a number that remains high to this day.

So, how was measles infection approached in the 50s and 60s?

As a benign right of passage childhood illness, as evidenced in the 1969 episode of the Brady Brunch, a classic family sitcom at the time, where all six of the Brady kids came down with the measles.

Despite widespread vaccination in Canada, with the first shot given to babies between 12 and 15 months of age, and a second dose given around 18 months, it’s not considered to be a sterilizing vaccine. “Two doses provide lifelong immunity in most people,” according to the Government of Canada.

One of the more recent measles outbreaks in Canada saw 697 cases across the country, 4% of which were in vaccinated individuals over the age of one – since that demographic isn’t eligible to be vaccinated with the MMR.

Notably, there were no reported cases in those aged 60 and older, a demographic supposed to be at high risk. This group was born before the 1963 vaccine licensing and subsequent roll out, suggesting that they have robust, natural immunity.

Given the CDC's classification of adverse events linked to the MMR vaccine, such as fevers above 103 degrees Fahrenheit in 5-15% of recipients, a rash occurring in 5%, febrile seizures, anaphylaxis, etc. is the risk of an adverse event really worth it? For a vaccine that doesn’t guarantee protection against the infection it’s meant to target, for an infection that carries similar complications to the vaccine itself?

Weighing these risks against potential benefits is the essence of informed consent.

Canadians deserve access to real statistics and unbiased facts to make these choices, something they aren’t getting through the fearmongers in the mainstream media or pharmaceutical-backed health overlords.