another outrageous story about mumps vaccine failures

Quarantine and isolation aren’t effective with measles, because the disease is so, so contagious and it spreads long before people have the classic measles symptoms.

another attempt to explain away the mumps outbreak.

In 2010, no doctor in this country is allowed to diagnose measles on the basis of symptoms alone.

How did that happen to come about?

It started in England in 1994, when they had a mass MR vaccination campaign. In 1995, there were over 5,000 cases of measles reported by doctors. Dismayed that having spent so much money and time vaccinating everything that moved, and then having measles cases continuing to be reported by doctors, the laboratories decided that clinically diagnosed measles without testing, would be abolished. All diagnoses from that time on, would have to be supported by saliva or serological testing. So they did a trial run, and guess what? From that time over 97% of doctor-diagnosed measles was tossed out.

This is from a newspaper clipping I received in april 1997, and has no date on it:

London (Europe Today). – “97.5% of the times that British doctors diagnose measles they are wrong”, says a publication of the Public Health Laboratory service. The mistake being made by National Health GPs was found when the services tested the saliva of more than 12,000 children who had been diagnosed as having measles. Roger Buttery, an adviser on transmissible diseases at the Cambridge and Huntingdon Health Department, said that the majority of doctors “say they can recognise measles a mile off, but we now know that this illness occurs only in 2.5% of the cases.” Buttery says that doctors classify as measles, many other viruses that also cause spots. He found eight different viruses during the survey in East Anglia. One of them, parvovirus, gives symptoms similar to German measles. The reason for the high rate of error puzzled Buttery. “Doctors are neither vague nor careless,” he said. The solution is to defer the diagnosis until more detailed information can be got. There are 5,000 to 6,000 cases of measles registered each year in the United Kingdom, but these findings now call most of them into doubt.”

PMID: 10588453 is just one of the medical articles which came out of that experience.

Now in New Zealand, no doctor is “allowed” to diagnose measles, just because it looks like measles.

Furthermore, the same thing happened with the diagnoses of measles in Africa when in 2000, WHO set up laboratories to check out the accuracy of measles diagnoses in Africa.

Once upon a time you used to be able to find this document on the Afro WHO website: http://www.afro.who.int/measles/reports/surveillance_feedback_bulletin_jan_2006.pdf

now I can’t. Perhaps I’m useless But I kept a copy of it, because it’s a classic. So I could send it to InsideVaccines admin if you want to see it.

If you can find it, this is what you will find. If you take the WHO data on page 2, out of 14,185 cases, 3,257 were accepted leaving a balance of 10,928 discarded, so that equals 77% which were NOT measles – once blood tested.

So when everyone went “OOOOooooo ahhhhhh” when the WHO announced a 91% measles decline between 2000 and 2006 …http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr62/en/index.html …. no-one thought to ask themselves, whether or not the “diagnosis criteria” had changed, when in actual fact, the METHOD of data collection introduced in 2000 in Africa, created the majority of that numerical decline. The data before 2000 remained as it had been… a doctor “said” it was measles, so it was accepted as measles.

So there are more ways than one to screw the data. Change the diagnostic criteria, or have observer bias.

But either way, the fact that most countries no longer diagnose measles on sight and symptoms alone, because a doctor’s diagnosis can’t be trusted, also throws any historical graph based on a doctor saying, “It looks like a duck, so it is a duck” into question.

Now, you can come back to me and say, “Well where is the measles infections now?”

Good question. Is it rediagnosed as something else? Maybe it has gone. But why is it now so common for doctor-diagnosed “measles” to be thrown out as a diagnosis, when challenged with the appropriate tests? What might we find if we could be a Dr WHO and go back to 1963 when just about everything was called “measles” and test those cases with the tests we have now?

We “believe” the medical literature of the 1950’s, because we’ve no measure of truth comparison.

When our children landed up with their “second” episode of doctor-diagnosed measles we landed up in hospital (not because we needed to be there) and after scratching their heads on seeing Koplik spots et al, the doctors wrote in our younger son’s file that he had a measles-like infection. When I expressed surprise I was told that there were about 25 other viruses which could cause measles like infections. After I’d been harangued for not vaccinating our kids. They refused to do a blood test to define what the children had had.

Later on discussion with another doctor we were told that he had a collection of blood tests from children, who had had “proper” measles more than once. I asked him why this handn’t been published, and his answer was that “no journal would accept what he’d written”.

Again, you can’t prove what has happened, if the medical profession decree it doesn’t happen.

So today, we know that not all measles is measles, and that diagnosis change only came about because the reporting of measles in UK in 1995, threatened the perception that the measles vaccine was a failure.

I could also ask you the question; “Where has all the scarlet fever” of the 1940’s gone?” Is that also misdiagnosed as something else? Did it get less severe? has it changed its clinical presentation?

JR Paul’s book the History of Poliomyelitis mentions several really strange viral diseases in the twentieth century which came, and went, and no-one ever got a handle on what the infections were caused by.

So there are many reasons why I challenge the accuracy of not just that measles graphs, but also the measles graphs from UK and our own country.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/4/909

1)Just because a vaccine is licensed, doesn’t mean that the uptake is very high.
**Uptake was obviously sufficiently high to considerably reduce disease transmission; the epidemiology supports that.**

Sciencemom, what was the uptake of the killed vaccine in the USA between 1963 – 1967? How do you know, within the fact that any epidemic cycle of measles is four years, that one, or even two years of minimal vaccine uptake is enough to reduce disease transmission?

The epidemiology only supports the dramatic drop over two years, if there was considerable observer bias and under-reporting of measles in the community at large. And again, you can’t prove something happened, when the medical profession says it didn’t.

2) The first measles vaccine was a killed one which caused several problems. First, it didn’t work. Second, the recipients later suffered repeated episodes of atypical measles which was much more serious than measles itself, and much harder to diagnose. That data was never included under measles.

3)the killed measles vaccine was removed from the market.

**This isn’t enough to support your claim.**

No it isn’t, but I’ll come back with a long list of PMID numbers, when I’ve got reams of time to waste.

On the other hand, you’ve not provided any evidence to prove my claims incorrect. Funny how the proof always has to come the other way.

) There was a time lag until the live one came on the market.

**No, they overlapped; the inactivated measles vaccine programme went from 1963-1967 and the live Schwarz measles vaccine was introduced in 1965. This is all U.S. data, of course.**

Again, licensing and introduction of a vaccine, doesn’t mean widespread use.

Do you have the figures for yearly vaccine uptake of both measles vaccines from 1963 and 1967, Sciencemom?

*Wild-type derived maternal antibody does not last 15 months, let alone more. Infant antibody decays sharply at 6 months and almost no protective immunity is left at ~9 months, detectable antibody is gone in nearly all infants by 12 months.**

Not now it doesn’t!!!

When the measles vaccines were first introduced, wild measles immunity in mothers did last 15 months. Have you read that literature?

Don’t you think that it’s interesting that as a result of vaccinating two generations of mothers, now babies can be vulnerable to measles so much earlier now, compared to even 1980?

I have natural immunity. My children lived through measles “epidemics”. Both were extend breastfed and both had their first dose of measles at 2 years of age, so my passive immunity for them, lasted longer than 15 months.

Why are you putting up this URL http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/15071296 ? Why would you use a baby born prematurely at 32 weeks to a vaccinated mother to reflect normality as to what happened in an unvaccinated mother with natural immunity, when the killed and live vaccines were first introduced in 1963 – 1970? Or later for that matter… .

Why are you using this URL either? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17629601This supports my contention. This 2007 article shows that vaccine induced immunity does indeed differ markedly from naturally immune mothers. And they better watch out vaccinating early with measles, since a baby’s immune system just might not handle that at all.

**Measles infections did not continue as usual and were primarily due to low vaccine uptake.***

So you admit that the vaccine uptake was low. How low?

**The same was observed in the U.S. when in 1969, funding was diverted to the rubella vaccine campaign and measles vaccinations rates dropped.**

The vaccine rates dropped from exactly what… to exactly what????

*** This coincided with an increase in cases until 1974 that can be seen in the graph above. Vaccinating infants over 15 months old does make more sense as seroconversion rates are better.***

I can see you’ve not read the early literature. The reason conversion rates in 15 month old babies were better, was because there was less likelihood of maternal antibodies interfering with the vaccine.

** Again, this has nothing to do with the successful measles programmes that have interrupted indigenous measles circulation and reduced disease burden by well over 90%.**

I wasn’t arguing that. I was arguing the fact that the graph above is totally implausible in terms of the first 10 years following the introduction of the killed measles vaccine, and I stand by that. And would argue the same, even more strongly if you stuck up the Pertussis decline graph as well. In fact, I’d argue it with pertussis right up to 2010!

**I would be interested in those medical articles that show wild-type measles immune duration to be less than 20 years.**

Try PMID: 10381212 as a starting point.

** It is false that there are no measles-specific cell-mediated immunity assays; there are direct CFC assays, Flow cell cytometry andT-cell proliferation assays that are also used for Interferon γ (IFN-γ) production. They are just generally not used for large scale epidemiological surveys, particularly since antibody titres are a reliable surrogate for immune response. That’s not something the average doctor even knows or understands. To them, the only proof of immunity is a titre test.**

Exactly my point. There is no test that a person can go to a doctor and ask for from a laboratory.

The only test available here, to check for memory immunity is to go and have a vaccine, and then they do two titre tests four weeks apart. Then they turn round and say, “Oh, yes, you didn’t need that booster. But since they are safe, might as well have had it to be “safe”.

Gah…

**Nice broad brush there, and when you are part of the scientific and medical communities that examine these issues, perhaps you would be more qualified to make such statements.**

Nice rank-pulling smackdown there Sciencemom. Do you ever resist such a temptation? I’d wager that I’ve read far more medical literature on any vaccine topic than you have. Ah, but to “understand” it, I need that holy grail degree don’t I!!!!

**The fact is, is that as I previously mentioned, CMI assays are not routinely used because they are expensive, require higher levels of expertise to run and serological antibody assays have been a reliable surrogate of measles immune response.**

Serological antibody assays were assumed to represent permanent immunity and were only a reliable surrogate of measles immune response during the times when wild measles virus still circulated, and for a couple of decades thereafter.

We have not had a nationwide serological survey of measles immunity in unvaccinated people for some time now. In the past, unvaccinated people would have continued to show immunity because of circulation of virus. That doesn’t happen so much now, even in this country, which is not the USA. We’ve had ten years now, of very little measles virus circulation, so I’m picking that if they did a serological survey here, in unvaccinated people it would not show immunity decline for about another 15 – 20 years.

But that might not mean anything, because there is talk of putting the MMR into the adult schedule. maybe by then it will also be a regular adult booster.

I wonder what would happen across USA if measles, mumps and rubella virus was aerially sprayed across the country?
**What absurd statements especially since ‘aerially-sprayed’ infectious disease doesn’t even represent wild-type circulation. Why would you even need that to demonstrate herd immunity for measles and rubella when the epidemiology reflects the success of each vaccine component. Mumps should not be compared to the other 2 since it is a vaccine with considerably lower effectiveness and efficacy.**

Several points there. first, I’m not talking about herd immunity. I’m talking about the reality of personal immunity in relation to assumed herd immunity.

1) Okay, the aerial spraying was ridiculous. So why not go into all the schools in one city and nasally spray live measles virus up the nose of all kids and see whether or not the vaccine actually protects. If there is no virus around to challenge that person, you don’t know whether the vaccine would protect that person if there WAS measles virus around. Let’s find out. Everyone assumes that mumps vaccines protect against mumps. Until a mumps virus comes along and shows that it doesn’t.

2) By the same token, you don’t know if the Rubella vaccine component would protect against a rubella infection, unless the person was challenged with the virus.

3) Why shouldn’t mumps be compared? After all, it was claimed to be very efficacious and no doubt the CDC would say their disease decline graphs proved that too. Except the mumps outbreak in USA right now, proves that in the absence of the pathogen, the claimed immunity level was assumed, not real.

4) If there were such a thing as a snake vaccine, in our country it would have a 100% efficacy. We have no snakes here.

Science mom, I will come back to your comments later:

**Because measles doesn’t (presently) travel from vaxed person to vaxed person to vaxed person the way mumps does.**

How do you know? One of the most common causes of “measles-like illnesses” in this country are rashes that follow the MMR vaccine. In the days when MMR was given in one district, on one day, you could follow these trends by looking at absenteeism in schools, but now you cant because they aren’t given on one day in all schools in that area.

That problem is now disguised.

You say that measles ** had plenty of opportunities to spread into the vaxed population and take off last year with the imported cases that caused the outbreaks. It didn’t. It fizzled right out.**

That’s incorrect. Your health department didn’t stand back and do nothing. Look at the over the top quarantine, blanket vaccination and isolation that CDC implemented everywhere. Anyone who got measles was metaphorically thrown into home jail, …. It’s amply illustrated in the Boston newspapers alone.
It just might have been a whole “another” story if the CDC had backed off and done nothing. THEN we might have seen the reality of whether or not the measles vaccine is as great as it’s cracked up to be.

Article about all the billions drug companies expect to make out of vaccines.