Here’s how a child dies of measles

[Shuffletoesxtreme]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/child-dies-measles-vaccines/685969/

60 cases in London, where vaccinations are lowest in the country.

Thanks for the thread op.

It goes against all instincts to inject yoir most precious possession with anything! But- totally worth doing. Weve taken every vaccination offered to protect our children, and count ourselves lucky to have the option.

@Twelve8Ts If your child had such a bad reaction to a vaccine that she was hospitalised, then I can understand why you feel suspicious about vaccines. But it's important to remember how unusual that reaction is, and to bear in mind at the same time how terrible these diseases are when they run unchecked.

What happened to her and from which vaccine? (Just curious.) I'm sorry that you and she went through that.

I had measles as a child. I have limited vision in one eye as a result. I’ve been told that there’s a very high chance that I will eventually go blind in this eye. Please vaccinate your children.

That's just awful. And there are quite a few others like you on this thread who have limited vision thanks to measles. I actually don't know anyone personally who's in that situation, so thanks for the reminder that there are still people living with the consequences of not having had timely access to an essential vaccine.

One of my friends is deaf in one ear, and I think it was due to measles as a child, but I'll have to check. Also, when I was very young, in the Eighties, I do remember a very old lady down the road who dragged one leg behind her due to a childhood polio infection.

I suppose many parents of young children today aren't old enough to remember anyone who had these effects, or to have friends/acquaintances who have lasting effects from diseases such as measles.

It's maddening, absolutely maddening, that outbreaks are happening because people aren't vaccinating. Those poor, poor children. Their illnesses are totally preventable. I can only hope that they don't suffer lifelong consequences.

Another way the NHS gets broken.

A cheap vaccination refused vs a lifetime of expensive medical support

Perhaps parents who opt their children out of vaccinations should be required to take private medical insurance for them until the child is adult.

It only takes a walk around somewhere like Highgate cemetery (where fashionable upper middle class people preferred to be buried) to see how devastating life pre-vaccines must have been. Every family has at least 2-3 children who died before 10 - even the richest ones were not immune... Some families have 5 or 6 children from the same generation buried in family crypts. Imagine time when this was the norm.

Anti-vaxxers are vile.

I think it varies by area. Apparently my mum was offered BCG for me, in school, when I was 5. The area I lived in had mass immigration from countries where TB is endemic and of course they brough TB with them.

We moved a couple of times and I eventually had it with the rest of my class at about 15 / 16.

As another poster said talk to your GP, you might be able to have the MMR now.

It is well established that measles is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the vaccine.

MMR and MMRV vaccines are contraindicated for a very small number of children at risk of serious side effects. HCP will not vaccinate them.

Ridicule is always wrong, but for a parent to decide to protect her own healthy DC from a very, very small risk of side effects is to rely on other parents taking that risk in order to keep her DC safe. That’s the problem.

The more parents who think that ‘my family is too precious to risk’, even though that risk is negligible, the more children will be left deaf, blind and dead from measles. It really is that simple.

Vaccine uptake of less than 70% in Enfield - site of the current large outbreak - 'sadly an accident waiting to happen'

Many parts of London have low coverage tho' not as low as Enfield

I worked with a deaf man (hus mother caught measles when pregnant) and someone who had zero control over her lower body at all due to polio. One running happily as a child, a month later she would never take a single step again.

Worked with others too.

Anti-vaxxers as a breed are stupid and very very selfish.... (which does not include the people who are advised not to innoculate on genuine doctors' advice).

I wish the anti-vaxxers would actually use some critical facilities and look at these anti-vax doctors, their gigantic egos and their finances. Some of them have apparently got very rich pushing this line, while measles takes its chance to return.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who face accessibility barriers to getting their DC vaccinated, and reasonable sympathy for some who face cultural barriers. The answer is education, not vaccine choice which ends up killing other people’s DC.

In France and Italy childhood vaccination is mandatory, and in Germany it is mandatory for starting school. This was true in America for ages, although it may have changed in certain states and is probably changing under RFK.

On the newer Chat thread on this topic people are musing about making vaccine uptake a condition of receiving benefits. I certainly think it should be a condition of receiving free nursery hours, unless DC has an NHS certificate of medical exemption. I would probably favour it for school entry, but worry that this may leave some children being home educated by parents with no understanding of science or civics.

Relying on others for herd immunity when your child has no adverse pre conditions is why herd immunity fails.

MMR vaccine was introduced in 1988 in the UK. Before that there was a single measles vaccine which was introduced in 1968, and rubella vaccine was given to girls usually at school at around the age of 12-13 from 1970.

Any adult can be offered MMR vaccine if they are unsure of their previous vaccine or natural infection status. Just contact the practice nurse at your GP surgery. However it is a live vaccine so cannot be given to pregnant women, and people who are immune suppressed which means @Teaandcake01 you are unlikely to be able to receive it.

Your GP should be able to offer you a blood test to check your measles immunity which would hopefully be reassuring.

I’m in an adjacent borough to Enfield (and family live in Haringay) and I’m immunocompromised and frankly terrified about this. DC had every vaccination offered and I paid privately for chickenpox as the NHS didn’t offer it.

It sounds scary to say doubles the risk of febrile convulsions but its doubling a very small number.

I suspect that people who don’t vaccinate don’t fear cars or spend hours doing ‘research’ into child deaths in car accidents. It’ll be higher than vaccine deaths in the UK.

My mother is a doctor, my father is a scientist, my sister is an epidemiologist, we, and all of our children, are fully vaccinated, as are all their friends and colleagues.

It's a very rare doctor or scientist who doesn't choose vaccination for themselves and their families, which you would think would tell the anti-vaxxers something.

Two of my three DCs had febrile convulsions, not from vaccination. My DH did too - there's a strong family component. They are frightening, to be sure, but not harmful ultimately. And the odds are high that a child who's predisposed to having them will have one at some point with a routine childhood illness.

Adding onto this @Teaandcake01, I can see my entire vaccination history on the NHS app. You might be able to check there; otherwise your GP records should still contain it despite moving.

This image shows why we don’t really hear about people dying of measles these days. Spoiler alert: it’s vaccine related.

I wasn’t vaccinated for measles, mumps or rubella (1964 baby) I had all these as a small child, measles was the second last I had, at about five I think. I didn’t get Chickenpox until I was nearly 12. I did have various other vaccines, polio on a sugar lump aged around 3, tetanus, possibly diphtheria ? TB vaccine given in school at 13. My (younger than me) DH was vaccinated for measles, so I think the measles vaccine came at some point in the early 70s ?

No child nor adult has died of measles in the UK this year, one child with other medical problems died in 2025 - but way to go with scaring the shit of out people OP. Start posting facts.

Vaccines aren't 100% think we all learned that with covid.

In fact, if anyone cares to check on the government webpage on vaccine damages compensation - how many children were compensated for severe life changing vaccine damage compared to how many suffered severe life changing consequences due to measles in the last year - I'd be interested to know,

Well, we do know that two doses of the MMR provide 97% protection against measles, one dose around 93%.

Since you seem keen on facts, this is from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases

Even in a mild case, measles is a miserable disease with high fever, sensitivity to light (photophobia), dehydration, cough, pneumonia (1 in 20), and rash. Measles can result in seizures, deafness, blindness, permanent lung damage, and immune amnesia (wiping out of prior immune protection). Measles can weaken the immune system and the central nervous system, leading to serious disease and even death years after measles infection. Estimates show that 1-3 out of 1,000 children with measles will die.

I'll take the 97% odds of none of the above for my DCs. Since I'm not a moron.

If they had other medical problems and then caught measles and died, simply put it was the measles which killed them.

Archive.is

@oneoneone so 1 in 1000 children according to your figures die of measles and not of related illnesses, how many in 1000 children due to vaccination complications?

So you’re part of the problem then

Why don't you find the relevant statistics and post them for discussion instead of posing disingenuous questions?

And what does 'not of related illnesses' mean? If they die of pneumonia or encephalitis as a result of measles, that's dying from measles.