Measles is one of the most infectious diseases known to man. A person can cough and hours later you can catch the virus from the droplets left in the air. Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000, yet there have been 1,249 cases confirmed this year, with 115 hospitalized, some with secondary pneumonia and encephalitis. Vaccine skeptics are the primary cause of the outbreaks, most of which are linked to travelers who brought back the virus from other countries.
Measles has had a 300 percent rise in cases globally over the last year for reasons including vaccine refusal, problems with healthcare access, civil unrest, or low awareness. Ukraine, Madagascar, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Yemen, Republic of Congo, Israel, and Brazil are among the countries most affected. In the last two years, the Republic of Congo, with a 50% vaccination rate, has had 240,000 cases and 5,000 deaths, twice that of the Ebola crisis. Madagascar recorded more than 69,000 cases and 1200 related deaths, the Ukraine has experienced 72,000 cases and the Philippines 19,000 cases. The island of Samoa, with a 30% vaccination rate, now reports over 1200 cases of measles with 16 deaths in the last few weeks.
For measles, 90 to 95 percent of the population needs to be fully vaccinated to achieve what’s known as “herd immunity.” This prevents diseases from spreading, and it protects even those who can’t be vaccinated, like newborns and people with vaccine allergies. Any drop in vaccination rates, especially in children and however brief, puts the larger community at risk. The median rate of kindergarteners whose parents filed non-medical exemptions increased 150 percent from the 2009–10 to 2017–18 school years. Through social media, sensationalized lies reach more people than the truth—and reach them faster. Members of online social networks echo and reinforce the same lies. Eighty percent of Americans turn to the internet for answers to their health-related questions and are very likely to be exposed to lies that lead to harmful medical decisions.
The solution: State legislators and licensing boards must send clear pro-vaccination messages by eliminating non-medical exemptions and holding providers accountable for misleading and harmful anti-vaccination practices. Parents are apt to consult other resources about their children’s health, and so web-based content curators also need to be more conscientious about processes. Attacking the vaccine lie from all angles may finally be enough for the truth to prevail and protect our children and other vulnerable populations.
Eight major vaccine myths that research has shown to be baseless:
- Vaccines cause autism. This is the great vaccine lie of 1997. The vaccine lie was perpetrated with a study by British researcher Andrew Wakefield, MD, that falsely linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism in young children. The findings were later discovered to have been a fraud, and the study was fully retracted with the doctor losing his license. Recent research has shown that autism is likely developed before birth.
- Infant immune systems can’t handle so many vaccines. Even if all 14 vaccines were given at once, it would use up slightly more than 0.1% of a baby’s immune capacity.
- Natural immunity is better than a vaccine. If you wanted to gain an immunity to measles by catching it, you have a 1 in 500 change of death. Allergic reactions from the vaccine are less than one in one million (with no deaths).
- Vaccines contain unsafe toxins. Only trace amount are used and there is no scientific evidence that any are harmful in these amounts.
- Better hygiene and sanitation are responsible for decreased infections, not vaccines. In 1963, when the vaccine was introduced, the rate of infection was 400,000 cases. By 1970, the rate was 25,000 with hygienic habits and sanitation remaining unchanged.
- Vaccines aren’t worth the risk. Never been a single credible study linking vaccines to long term health conditions. The overall incidence of severe allergic reaction is one for every two million injections.
- Vaccines can infect my child with the disease. There is a less than 1 in 1 million chance where symptoms occur, but this is the body’s immune response, not the disease itself.
- We don’t need to vaccinate because the infection rates are low. This is already being shown as problematic with almost 1300 cases of measles reported in 2019 alone, most of which were brought to the US by travelers to other countries.