Recently, Robert F Kennedy Jr claimed that the measles vaccine causes deaths every year, which is patently false. And once again, he is wrong. This is just another false claim about measles and its vaccine that we hear over and over.
Kennedy said,
It (the measles vaccine) does cause deaths every year. It causes — it causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis and blindness, et cetera. And so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.
I don’t know how to refute this claim because there is simply no evidence supporting this, but I will try to provide it.
On the other hand, we know what measles itself can do — cause deaths. Maybe that brainworm has confused him. The measles vaccine prevents deaths, very simply.
smiling girl running towards left on green field
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Measles vaccine and deaths — doesn’t happen
According to the Infectious Disease Society of America, there have been “no deaths related to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in healthy individuals.” In case it isn’t clear, since the 1970s, the measles vaccine has been given in a combination shot with mumps and rubella, called MMR vaccine, to minimize the number of shots.
The MMR vaccine is live attenuated, meaning that the viruses are alive but weakened. After vaccination, the measles virus causes a harmless infection with few, if any, symptoms before the virus is ultimately killed by the immune system. The vaccine does induce an immune response that will kill these viruses that may show up later in life.
Rarely, vaccine-associated measles can be observed in immune-compromised individuals, which is why the vaccine is not recommended for those individuals and during pregnancy.
Kennedy may be relying upon VAERS reports, but that’s a self-reported system that never shows causality. There are better methods to find correlation, like the Vaccine Safety Datalink, and there are
According to a STAT article,
The shot still commonly causes a fever. Seizures caused by fever occur in 3 in 10,000 people who receive the shot. Clotting issues occur in roughly 3 in 100,000. Allergic reactions occur in perhaps 3 in a million.
Other side effects are even rarer than that. As Kennedy noted, the vaccine can cause encephalitis, although case counts appear vanishingly rare. There are also scattered case reports of patients developing optic neuritis, a condition that can cause blindness, but in most of these patients sight returned with time or treatment. Those cases are so rare it is difficult to even estimate the risk of them occurring — except to say that it is very, very low.
These are all extremely rare to the point that they may be random occurrences rather than being caused by the vaccine.
Once again, there just is no high-quality evidence that links the measles vaccine (or MMR) to deaths.
smiling girl holding gray rabbit
Photo by Anastasiya Gepp on Pexels.com
Measles is much more dangerous
In contrast to the very low risks of side effects from the measles vaccine, measles itself has some serious complications including deaths.
For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1-2 will die from it. Yes, despite the claims that measles is not dangerous, it does kill as we have seen in the outbreak in Texas.
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.
The risks from measles greatly exceed any of the minor risks of the MMR vaccine itself.
I know that people want the measles vaccine to have 0% risk and 100% effectiveness (although after two MMR shots, it’s 97% effective). But all medical procedures have risks.
However, the minor and tiny risks from the MMR vaccine are far exceeded by the large and dangerous risks of measles itself.
Summary
Let’s make this simple — there is no evidence that the measles vaccine causes deaths. There is a ton of evidence that measles itself causes deaths.
Once again, Robert F Kennedy Jr doesn’t have a clue about vaccines.
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!
Michael Simpson
Latest posts by Michael Simpson (see all)
Liked it? Take a second to support Michael Simpson on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!
Discover more from Skeptical Raptor
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.