Measles … I don’t understand!

I'm old and I had measles as a child before the vaccines were introduced. I can remember feeling really really ill and remembering that when it was over 60 years ago means it must have been bad. I know someone whose sister was left with brain damage from catching measles. I cannot understand why anyone would want to risk their child getting measles.

When was this? My great granny knew many children who died of measles, or were permanently damaged by it. In the past they NEVER willingly caught measles.

This is honestly bizarre - read Roald Dahl's account of his seven year old who died suddenly of measles. It's heartbreaking, a deadly disease

Wakefield was in the late 90s; his article was published in 1998.

From memory, the measles jab is slightly different from other vaccinations in that the second one isn't a booster, it is more to give you another chance at gaining immunity. I think you can have all your scheduled measles jabs but still remain vulnerable. However, if a large enough number of the population have the jabs, the population as a whole remains safe. I may have this wrong, so don't shoot me down in flames. Just remembering a conversation with a doctor when I was about a necessary delay to DS' vaccines.

Where on earth are you? What sort of groups are you going to? - we are 2nd generation home ed so I've been in the HE world for 35 years and that is nothing like my experience. I've probably not heard them mentioned more than once or twice a year.

The whooping cough jab was first introduced on NHS 1957 (diphtheria 1942 and tetanus 1961 according to the government list - I'm still looking for the date that the DPT combo (aka DTwP) first rolled out in UK, but can only find the US dates, which are earlier - end of the 1940s)

The controversy (over brain damage, which the vaccine appeared to cause in the unlucky few - report by GOSH in 1974, 36 cases) led to widespread mistrust of the vaccine and a massive fall in uptake, even some doctors ceased recommending it. Despite safely studies (looking at all children in UK who had the same type of neurological condition, and failing to find a definitive link to the vaccine), the controversy reignited in the US in 1982. Some companies even stopped making the jab, which stoked public concerns. There were a huge number of lawsuits.

It only really went away when the pertussis element was reformulated into an acellular version (DTaP late 80s? early 90s?)

In the time of the controversy, there was still a DT jab, so children were protected against those two (they didn't give whole pertussis jab to adults, because of risks, which again stoked the controversy over whether children should have it), and also a single tetanus (in widespread use as it was given routinely after deep puncture wounds)

I believe the whooping cough vaccine was withdrawn because a small number of medics thought it was associated with brain damage. This was never proved. The original vaccine was replaced with a different “safer” version which unfortunately does not confer the same level of immunity. This is why we see large outbreaks of mild whooping cough every year. It often goes undiagnosed because it is in most cases very mild and doesn’t lead to the chronic cough associated with whooping cough.
Those of us who had the vaccine pre 1970s will have a much more robust response to infection.

One of my cousins has hearing loss due to measles - they're in their mid 40s.
One cousin also in their 40s has hearing loss due to their mother having German measles in pregnancy.
Measles parties would be insanity.

Both me and my sibling somehow missed the vaccines available in the early 80s and have both had measles, mumps and rubella (and chicken pox).

It was awful, our poor mum had to nurse us through one after the other. Curtains tight shut, in pain, feverish and home visits from the doctor.

My children are vaccinated!

This is a myth - see posts upthread. There were chicken pox parties - there was no vaccine and it was thought to be inevitable that children would catch it, and in most cases that gave lifelong immunity. The parties were designed so that infected children would pass it on and the others would get the immunity.

Not so with measles. It was a notifiable disease before vaccinations and public health advice at the time was clear - strict quarantine to avoid outbreaks. It’s a serious illness and can cause various lifelong disabilities and even be fatal - it can also surface again years later and cause a form of encephalitis which is almost always fatal. The idea that parents would allow their children to deliberately catch the disease is just nonsense - it was feared and dreaded..

RFK’s political ambitions have been badly hampered by his links with some seriously unscientific anti vax stances. And he wrote that book with a bloke called Brian Hooker, whose own claims about the MMR vaccine were discredited.

Oh, and your assertion that many measles outbreaks are among highly vaccinated populations is just plain wrong. Same for whooping cough. About 3% of vaccinated people will actually get the disease, and in a much milder form, and the incidence of passing it on is very much reduced. The incidence of measles is much higher in unvaccinated or under vaccinated areas and it only takes one case to start an outbreak.

Your whole post is scant on fact and is actually the scaremongering you accuse others of. Attempting to suggest that children should be left vulnerable to disease which can cause lifelong disability isn’t a good look.

@bruffin I thought I remembered Wakefield being involved with single vaccines too. Thanks for confirming!

Me too. I was very very ill with measles- it’s one of my earliest memories. I caught rubella quite soon afterwards too. Measles parties have never been a thing. As others have said, pre-vaccine measles was a feared but common virus. It was, and still is, extremely dangerous. Most children who catch it are unvaccinated.

Or a patent for a single vaccine

"There are lots of good books on this now and they are well researched, science based. Robert F Kennedy Junior has published Vax-Unvax: let the science speak for itself. "

are you being serious! Rfk is notorios for just peddling antivax tropes , not much science involved.
It was written with Brian Hooker who was totally discredited over his mmr claims.

A lot of the measles outbreaks are amongst highly vaccinated populations.

No they aren’t.

Measles outbreaks are in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated populations.

Unless you think you know better than WHO.

And the controversy about the MMR DID pre-date Wakefield, because I am old enough to remember it in the late 90s before he came along. He was really just trying to prove what some parents erroneously thought, it wasn't a new idea that he came up with by himself.

It was Wakefield who came up with the debunked theory that the MMR and autism were linked in 1998, based on falsified research.

Nothing to do with him having serious financial interests in selling tests of course.

Little wonder he was struck off.

There are lots of good books on this now and they are well researched, science based. Robert F Kennedy Junior has published Vax-Unvax: let the science speak for itself. This shows incontrovertibly in developed countries unvaccinated children have better long term health outcomes.
All I see on this post is people churning out the usual fear mongering shit about not having vaccines and none of the balance around the risks when you do. A lot of the measles outbreaks are amongst highly vaccinated populations. Similarly whooping cough.
Before you rush to rage against this message based on trotting out the standard NHS line, do some blinking research. Look at the payouts big pharma have been hit with for vaccine injury, look at the health crisis amongst children. I directly know 3 severely vaccine injured girls from HPV vax alone (POTS, lupus).

<a class="break-all" href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20140714111349/www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733819251" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20140714111349/www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733819251

This shows a link to vaccination rates, MMR was steadily climbing until 1998 when Wakefield made his statement. Even Whooping cough vaccination had recovered from the 70s scare.

Nope…. UK… measles

I checked and the measles vaccine was withdrawn in Japan in the early 90s, it wasn't the whooping cough vaccine.

And the controversy about the MMR DID pre-date Wakefield, because I am old enough to remember it in the late 90s before he came along. He was really just trying to prove what some parents erroneously thought, it wasn't a new idea that he came up with by himself.

The controversy about the whooping cough vaccine was separate and earlier. A lot of kids in my primary school had whooping cough so I assume quite a few of them weren't vaccinated because of it.

I don't know why I didn't have the measles vaccine if it was available but I mentioned that my aunt had problems with her eyesight after having measles so my mum wouldn't have taken any chances.

That is interesting. It was quite horrible, I had the arthritic symptoms. Fortunately they only lasted about a week but I read at the time that they can last up to a year!

England - they definitely weren't available in my area.

I got measles in the late 70s, so it wouldn't have been worth having the vaccine after that (although I was still vaccinated against rubella when I was 12 despite having had it twice). I got all the childhood illnesses out the way before I was 7!

Other than slapped cheek which I got at 34!

Yeah - much easier to take a kid to a ‘polio party’ and deal with the lifetime of disability it will cause than take them for a simple vaccine !!

When DD1 was born only the Asian babies were given TB injections. DD2 born 3 years later all babies given TB injections. This was in London. DS born 10 years later no TB injection but not in London by that time

Manchester 1950s and 60s very common thing to do. Every kid in my household and neighbours got all the common illnesses ( except whooping cough, think maybe only one sibling had that) I never caught any of them no matter how much my mother said “ over the road quick they’ve got …….”
I had to have a TB vaccination just after birth. Apparently couldn’t leave hospital without it as my parents lived with my paternal grandmother and she had someone else living the house ( no idea who ) who had TB. Honestly, it sounds like the Dark Ages doesn’t it?