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Debunking measles myths because they are dangerous

The Secretary of Health and Human Services and anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr shockingly supported the MMR vaccine for preventing measles in response to the outbreak in Texas. Still, he couldn’t help himself and pushed some myths and anti-vaccine tropes about the disease.

Of course, the internet is filled with other myths about measles, beyond some of the nonsense pushed by the anti-vaccine RFK Jr.

This post will review some of the myths about measles and the measles vaccine, so you know when to roll your eyes.

spilled bottle of yellow capsule pills measles myths

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Myth — vitamin A prevents or treats measles

RFK Jr and other anti-vaxxers pushed this most annoying of the myths — they believe that vitamin A can treat or prevent measles.

Vitamin A is in a class of nutritional compounds called antioxidants. It is needed by the body to help with vision, reproduction, cell growth, and the immune system. It protects your cells against free radicals and supports cell growth and function.

Vitamin A prevents and treats xerophthalmia (inability to see in low light) and night blindness. Individuals with vitamin A deficiency are at risk of mortality from measles (despite anti-vaccine claims, vitamin A supplementsdo not prevent measles).

People most at risk for vitamin A deficiency are those with a limited variety of food in their diet, with cystic fibrosis, or with malabsorption problems (problems absorbing food).

Vitamin A supplementation is necessary for people who have chronically low levels of the vitamin, which leads to a much higher susceptibility to measles complications, including death. People who consume normal levels of vitamin A are not at increased risk of measles complications, although they are still at risk from complications. Vitamin A has been used as a supportive therapy for children with severe measles, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where malnutrition is common.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that excess supplementation of vitamin A, if you have normal levels, will provide any benefit whatsoever. One of the fallacies of supplements is that if a little is good, a lot is better. Essentially, it’s an on/off switch — if you have normal vitamin A levels from your diet, that’s good enough, taking more isn’t going to make you super immune to measles or treat it faster.

If you live in the USA or another developed country, your diet gives you all the vitamin A you need. If for some reason you have a low level of the vitamin, as determined by blood tests, then it is important to receive supplements to fight the disease.

RFK Jr also mentioned cod liver oil for children who contracted measles because it’s high in vitamin A. Once again, Kennedy fails to use science to support his claims, because no published evidence shows that cod liver oil does anything for measles.

But let’s make this clear — it is not a treatment for measles, unless you are malnourished or have some other conditions that reduce vitamin A blood levels, and it does not prevent measles or its serious complications.

emergency signage

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Myth — measles prevents cancer

This is one of the stranger measles myths — it is based on a “study” published 20 years ago in the quack journal (at least at that time), Medical Hypotheses. The journal was well known as a garbage dump for wacky ideas in medical science like HIV-AIDS denialism. Furthermore, the “research” was performed by anthroposophic doctors in Switzerland.

But it gets worse. The study wasn’t a high-quality case-control or retrospective cohort study. It utilized a questionnaire, subject to massive confirmation and observation biases along with recall bias of the participants. This type of study is considered quite low on the hierarchy of biomedical research.

Anthroposophic medicine is an alternative medicine that utilizes occult ideas to make it appear they have something more than science-based medicine. Dr. David Gorski, who addressed the appearance of this junk medicine at his alma mater, the University of Michigan Medical School, made a key observation about this pseudoscience:

Many illnesses, especially benign ones, should not be artificially prevented, but should be allowed to occur and be treated and healed. The patient thereby gains strength and experience, both biologically and spiritually. [*This would appear to be the basis for so many anti-vaccine beliefs that permeate every aspect of anthroposophic medicine and the education taught in Waldorf schools. After all, what is vaccination, but preventing illness? I guess your kids get so much stronger, spiritually and biologically, if you just let them, take their chances with measles, mumps, whooping cough, and Haemophilus influenzae type B. Because, you know, that worked out so well for children in terms of childhood mortality back in the days before vaccines could prevent these diseases. Oh, wait. No it didn’t.*]

Maybe it’s not obvious to everyone, but it is to me. Of course, an anthroposophic doctor would think that getting a measles infection would prevent cancer because that fits into their bias about their view of medicine. No published evidence shows individuals who have had measles are suddenly immune to cancer.

On the other hand, there is a growing body of evidence that shows that measles may be linked to an increased risk of some cancers. Here are some:

measles myths

Myth — prevent measles naturally

This myth is based on some beliefs that there are magical methods to prevent or treat measles, beyond the vitamin A myth I discussed above.

The only way to prevent measles “naturally” is to isolate your children from everyone. As you can see in the graph above, measles is extremely infectious, much more than other common infectious diseases.

Measles doesn’t care if you eat healthy food and work out.

Myth — measles is just a rash

According to the CDC, some of the many measles complications are:

For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1-2 will die from it.

About 30% of measles cases develop one or more complications.

Pneumonia is the complication that is most often the cause of death in young children.

Ear infections occur in about 1 in 10 measles cases and permanent loss of hearing can result.

Diarrhea is reported in about 8% of cases.

As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia.

About 1 child in every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, deafness, and other long-term neurological deficits.

A measles infection can result in short- and long-term immune system dysfunction, sometimes called immune amnesia, which can leave the child susceptible to other diseases early in life (which is in direct opposition to claims by anti-vaccine activists that it helps “boost” the immune system). Even if a child developed immunity to some disease before the measles infection, their immune system will “forget” that immunity, and the child will be susceptible to that infection again.

About 1-2 children, out of 1000 who contract measles, may develop subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a rare chronic, progressive encephalitis that affects primarily children and young adults– it is caused by a persistent infection of the measles virus. The disease starts with measles infection, usually before the age of 2 years, followed by approximately 6-15 asymptomatic years. Some researchers think the asymptomatic period is around 5-8 years after the initial disease. The disease gradually progresses with psychological and neurological deterioration, including personality changes, seizures, and coma. It is always ultimately fatal.

Myth — measles vaccine causes autism

Debunked.

Unfortunately, people are still hesitant about the measles vaccine either for themselves or for their children. The belief that the measles vaccine, or any vaccine, can cause autism is one of the reasons.

I know Robert F Kennedy Jr and all of the anti-vaccine minions will not read them, but there are over 160 published, peer-reviewed bioscience articles that have shown over and over that the measles vaccine does not increase the risk of autism. We have wasted money and resources trying to find a link but there is nothing there.

We can blame Mr. Andrew Wakefield who published his fraudulent study on vaccines and autism, a paper that was subsequently retracted.

Myth — “natural immunity” against measles is the best

Getting measles does provide a “natural immunity” against measles, but to get that immunity, the child needs to get the measles. As I wrote above, measles is a dangerous disease.

Some parents intentionally infect their children with measles (and other childhood diseases) by attending “measles parties” where one child with the disease passes the disease onto other children in a big group.

This is dangerous. Parents may think their child is healthier or genetically superior, so they just get a rash and that’s it. But we cannot predict what child is going to do poorly with measles and end up being hospitalized for pneumonia or encephalitis. Or dies.

Do you know what causes natural immunity to measles? The measles vaccine.

Myth — the measles vaccine gives children measles

The measles component of the MMR vaccine is a live-attenuated vaccine. That means that the measles virus is weakened so that it cannot cause the disease, but it effectively induces an immune response.

After receiving the vaccine, very rarely some individuals may experience mild symptoms including fever and a small rash, but it resolves quickly. Immunocompromised and pregnant individuals could develop vaccine-associated measles, so the vaccine is not usually given to them.

Some people push the myth that people who have received the measles vaccine infect others by shedding the virus. But that’s not how the weakened virus works. The measles virus can be detected in children who have received the vaccine for up to four weeks after the vaccination, it is extremely unlikely that the virus can be transmitted to another person because it weakened to prevent it from doing just that.

In the Texas measles outbreak, all cases of the disease resulted from “wild” measles strains not the vaccine strain.

Measles myths summary

I probably haven’t hit every single one of the measles myths that have resulted from the Texas outbreak, but I wanted to hit the major ones.

These measles myths are pernicious, and they can lead to parents making unfortunate decisions about their children, putting them at risk of serious complications, including death.

The best and safest way to prevent measles is the MMR vaccine. That’s it, period, end of story. Vitamin A is not going to prevent or treat measles. There isn’t some miracle food. There isn’t some magical gene that means your child avoids measles.

If you want to protect your children, get the vaccine. And don’t listen to RFK Jr, unless he mentions that you should get the vaccine.

Citations

Albonico HU, Bräker HU, Hüsler J. Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched controls. Med Hypotheses. 1998 Oct;51(4):315-20. doi: 10.1016/s0306-9877(98)90055-x. PMID: 9824838.

Ariad S, Milk N, Bolotin A, Gopas J, Sion-Vardy N, Benharoch D. Measles virus antigens in breast cancer. Anticancer Res. 2011 Mar;31(3):913-20. PMID: 21498713.

Benharroch D, Ariad S, Tadmor N, Nalbandyan K, Lazarev I. Relevance of the Measles Virus Expression in Cancer – an Update. Pathol Oncol Res. 2016 Oct;22(4):661-6. doi: 10.1007/s12253-016-0080-7. Epub 2016 Jun 10. PMID: 27287391.

Benharroch D, Gopas J, Ariad S. Does the measles virus contribute to carcinogenesis? – a review. J Cancer. 2014 Jan 5;5(2):98-102. doi: 10.7150/jca.7430. PMID: 24494027; PMCID: PMC3909764.

Mubbashir Z, Tharwani ZH, Kambar T, Munawar S, Raphael O, Siddiqui I, Nadeem SA, Amir A, Ahmed A, Bin Zafar MD, Anjum MU, Hasanain M, Malikzai A. Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis: Impact on Public Health, Current Insights, and Future Perspectives. Brain Behav. 2025 Feb;15(2):e70292. doi: 10.1002/brb3.70292. PMID: 39924947; PMCID: PMC11808179.

Retraction–Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet. 2010 Feb 6;375(9713):445. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4. PMID: 20137807.

Sion-Vardy N, Lasarov I, Delgado B, Gopas J, Benharroch D, Ariad S. Measles virus: evidence for association with lung cancer. Exp Lung Res. 2009 Oct;35(8):701-12. doi: 10.3109/01902140902853176. PMID: 19895323.

Michael Simpson

Lifetime lover of science, especially biomedical research. Spent years in academics, business development, research, and traveling the world shilling for Big Pharma. I love sports, mostly college basketball and football, hockey, and baseball. I enjoy great food and intelligent conversation. And a delicious morning coffee!