NYT: I Study Measles. I'm Terrified We're Headed for an Epidemic.

[Meowmee]

6. Some of the anti vax loons believe having measles helps overall immunity

Last edited Wed Apr 2, 2025, 08:50 AM - Edit history (3)

The exact opposite of what research has shown to be true. Measles itself is also dangerous and deadly. It is one of the most highly contagious and easily transmitted viruses as well. It has a100% infectivity rate for unvaccinated people. Having measles and surviving will usually give you long term immunity to measles but it will damage your immunity to many other diseases and it is deadly in an unvaccinated population and in poorer, crowded areas especially. With children under 5 being the most susceptible. Having a severe case of the virus also opens you to many other serious complications which can kill you as well.


Here is a history before the vaccine:

https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html#:~:text=Among%20reported%20measles%20cases%20each%20year%2C%20an,1%2C000%20suffered%20encephalitis%20(swelling%20of%20the%20brain)

“Francis Home, a Scottish physician, demonstrated in 1757 that measles is caused by an infectious agent in the blood of patients.

In 1912, measles became a nationally notifiable disease in the United States, requiring U.S. healthcare providers and laboratories to report all diagnosed cases. In the first decade of reporting, an average of 6,000 measles-related deaths were reported each year.

A vaccine became available in 1963. In the decade before, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years old. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Among reported measles cases each year, an estimated:

400 to 500 people died
48,000 were hospitalized
1,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain)”




https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/measles-one-deadliest-and-most-contagious-infectious-diseases-and-one-most-easily

“ “You don’t count your children until the measles has passed.” Dr. Samuel Katz, one of the pioneers of the first measles vaccine in the late 1950s to early 1960s, regularly heard this tragic statement from parents in countries where the measles vaccine was not yet available, because they were so accustomed to losing their children to measles.”


Deadliness of measles:

“Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every two to three years and caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

An estimated 107 500 people died from measles in 2023 – mostly children under the age of five years, despite the availability of a safe and cost-effective vaccine.”

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles#:~:text=Before%20the%20introduction%20of%20measles,500%20in%202022%20(1).

Earlier history & Mortality

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0755498222000422

“ Before the introduction of the vaccine in 1963, it was estimated that there were 30 million cases of measles each year, resulting in approximately 2 million deaths annually worldwide.”