WARNING!
This is an older article that may not reflect Dr. Mercola’s current view on this topic. Use our search engine to find Dr. Mercola’s latest position on any health topic.
By Barbara Loe Fisher
There have been hundreds of media stories published in the U.S. and around the world since Jan. 14, 2015, the day after it was first reported that visitors to Disneyland got measles and presumably infected other people in California, Washington, Utah, and Colorado.1
Like wildfire, the story spread globally even though there was - and still is - limited information about the 51 lab-confirmed cases of measles public health officials say are linked to the happiest place on earth.
According a Jan. 23 Health Advisory issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "no source case for the outbreak has been identified."2
Demonizing of Parents and Their Children
The U.S. has a population of more than 320 million people and 38 million people live in California, so it is curious why a handful of measles cases prompted one California newspaper to quickly place blame on parents making informed vaccine choices, calling them "ignorant" and engaged in a "self-absorbed rejection of science."3
Astroturfers4 and trolls5,6 saw that kind of talk as a green light to do more of it on public comment boards, suggesting that children with vaccine-related brain injuries are genetic mutants and calling mothers of vaccine injured children "liars" and "witches."7
Pediatrician Leads Blame and Shame Game
Dr. James Cherry,8 a prominent UCLA pediatrician and infectious disease expert, publicly joined in the blame and shame game, hurling insults at parents declining to give children every one of the government recommended 69 doses of 16 vaccines, including two MMR shots.
Dr. Cherry said, "There are some pretty dumb people out there,"9 and "Some people are just terribly selfish."10
Name-calling is a convenient way to deflect attention from inconvenient truths about vaccine failures and the dissolving myth of vaccine acquired herd immunity.11
A Very Highly Vaccinated U.S. Population
Case in point: there were 644 cases of measles reported in America in 2014,12 even though 95 percent of children entering kindergarten13 have gotten two doses of MMR vaccine, which is also true for 92 percent of school children ages 13 to 17 years.14
Plus, less than one percent of children under age three are completely unvaccinated and 92 percent of them have gotten one or more MMR shots.15 In some states, the MMR vaccination rate is approaching 100 percent.16
According to Dr. Cherry, measles vaccine acquired herd immunity is in effect with a measles vaccination rate of more than 90 percent.17 Well, that has been true in America since 1981 with one dose of MMR vaccine18 and since 2000 for two doses of MMR vaccine, which is one reason why the CDC declared measles eradicated from the U.S. in 2000.19
But, clearly, measles virus has not been eradicated from the U.S., just like measles has not been eradicated from any other country and emerging scientific evidence suggests it never will be—no matter how many doses of MMR vaccine are mandated for every man, woman and child in the world.20,21,22,23
Why is a big deal being made out of 51 cases of measles reported in the U.S.?
Flu Shots That Don't Work
Perhaps public health officials would prefer that the media and the public focus on a handful of measles cases at Disneyland and not focus on the fact that millions of Americans have gotten flu shots that don't work and health care workers are being fired if they don't get flu shots that don't work.24,25
If you got a flu shot this year, it will do absolutely nothing to protect you from the influenza strain making most people sick.26,27,28 Worse, scientists have confirmed that the more often you get an annual flu shot, the less effective it is!29,30
How many vaccinated people are attending schools, going to grocery stores, and working in hospitals and doctors' offices without a clue they are infected with and shedding and transmitting influenza virus because they only have mild flu symptoms or no symptoms at all?31,32
And it is anybody's guess how many children are getting sick after live virus influenza vaccine is sprayed up their noses33 or are shedding vaccine strain live virus that could make other people sick.34,35
Pertussis Vaccine Failing
The pertussis vaccine is failing, too.36,37 Like measles, in recent years there have been huge increases in reports of B. pertussis whooping cough among children and adults in California and other states, and many of those people have been vaccinated.38,39
That was true for pertussis outbreaks in the U.S. 30 years ago, too.40,41
Now public health officials are finally admitting the truth that many scientists have been publishing for a long time: you can be fully vaccinated for pertussis, get infected and show atypical or no symptoms and spread whooping cough to vaccinated and unvaccinated persons.42,43,44
In fact, Dr. Cherry himself admits that there are millions of undiagnosed B. pertussis whooping cough cases every year in America,45 even though 95 percent or more of America's school children have gotten multiple does of pertussis containing vaccinations.46
In 2013, Dr. Cherry wrote, "Neither B. pertussis infection or pertussis vaccination elicit long-lasting immunity. Infection and illness repeatedly occur in all ages throughout life."47 So much for the myth of pertussis vaccine acquired herd immunity.48
Measles Vaccine Failing
It isn't very scientific to blame pertussis or influenza outbreaks on unvaccinated people. And it isn't very scientific to blame measles outbreaks on unvaccinated people, either.
In some outbreaks of measles in California last year, nearly 20 percent of the people had been vaccinated.49 The CDC says that 12 percent of the measles cases associated with Disneyland were vaccinated, some of them with at least two doses of MMR vaccine.50
Measles vaccine acquired herd immunity is a dissolving myth, too.51,52,53 Public health doctors are scrambling to explain leaks in measles vaccine immunity54,55 and have come up with this lame excuse: they say they just discovered that one measles vaccinated adult in 10 is now susceptible to measles because vaccine immunity wears off.56 They call it "waning immunity."57
More MMR Shots Coming?
Now get ready for the sucker punch: Dr. Cherry told a TV network last week that the solution to waning measles vaccine immunity is to "give additional doses" of MMR vaccine to adults.58,59 That's right. Let's just mandate more MMR shots for millions of Americans and make Merck's stockholders really happy.60
But who is Dr. Cherry kidding? We all know that adults are way too hard to pin down – unless you threaten them with loss of a job or medical care or put them in prison—so I predict that the third MMR shot will more likely target high school students and people trying to get a college education.61
Dr. Cherry's solution to reported measles cases at Disneyland reminds me of when doctors told parents in 1990 that they didn't realize one dose of MMR vaccine would fail to provide lifelong immunity after all, so kids are going to have to get a second dose of MMR.62
Inconvenient Scientific Truths About Measles Vaccine
The inconvenient scientific truth about measles in Disneyland and around the world is that public health doctors do not know how many vaccinated people can be infected with measles, show few or no symptoms and transmit measles to other people.63 Government health officials do not conduct routine active surveillance of vaccinated people to find out if they are experiencing asymptomatic or atypical measles and transmitting it to others.
In addition, there are published studies demonstrating that people given live virus measles vaccine can be infected with vaccine strain measles virus and shed vaccine strain measles virus.64,65,66 Health officials do not conduct routine active surveillance of people getting live MMR vaccine to monitor for vaccine strain measles virus infection, shedding and the potential for transmission.
Is It Measles or Something Else?
Most doctors and parents don't know that the CDC warns, "During outbreaks, measles vaccine is administered to help control the outbreak, and in these situations, vaccine reactions may be mistakenly classified as measles cases. A small proportion of measles vaccine recipients experience rash and fever 10–14 days following vaccination."67
Yes, MMR vaccine can cause vaccine strain measles infection that looks just like measles.68 Plus, other common viral infections – like adenovirus infections – can look just like measles with rash, fever and conjunctivitis symptoms69,70 and be misdiagnosed as measles UNLESS there is expensive RNA lab testing done to confirm that what looks like measles really is wild type measles.71
Plans to Further Damage California Vaccine Exemptions
And now for the second sucker punch, at least for families living in California: Dr. Pan, the pediatrician politician who lobbied in 2013 to pass a bill restricting non-medical vaccine exemptions for children to attend school, told one California newspaper that he intends to introduce new legislation to do more damage to the ability of parents to weigh the benefits and risks of vaccination and make voluntary vaccine choices for their children.72 Will California health officials take away religious and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions and leave doctors like Dr. Pan and Dr. Cherry in charge of who gets a public education?
Using Disneyland to Move the Goalposts
The hype about 51 cases of measles reportedly linked to Disneyland73 has more to do with covering up vaccine failures and propping up the dissolving myth of vaccine acquired herd immunity than it does about protecting the public health. It has a lot to do with defensive doctors trying to blame a minority of parents who are refusing to place irrational faith in them and their moving goal posts,74 and are choosing instead to think and act rationally.75
That third MMR shot is coming to America and so is a massive Pharma-led lobby attempt to demonize and punish76,77 all Americans who defend the human right to exercise informed consent to medical risk-taking, including vaccine risk-taking.78 The calls to strike down those who do not use every dose of the growing list of government-mandated vaccines, is on a fast track.79,80 It will include banning the unvaccinated from exercising the right to get a public education, medical care,81 employment, and many other human and civil rights.
Americans Have a Choice to Make
The battle lines are clearly drawn. Now Americans have a choice to make: will we stand up and fight to protect our human right to make voluntary decisions about which vaccines we buy and use, or will we permit liability free drug companies and government health officials to take that freedom from us?82
Go to NVICAdvocacy.org and learn how you can take action to protect vaccine exemptions in your state. Learn more about the risks and complications of measles and measles vaccine on NVIC.org. And if you or your child has been vaccinated and the vaccine failed to protect you or caused harm, you can make a report to NVIC and share your experience with others on NVIC.org.
It's your health. Your family. Your choice.