Measles … I don’t understand!

[dol1]

Dd has had the vaccine at 12 months. I’ve been watching news and there is apparently a ‘surge’ in cases now. The second vaccine for it isn’t until she’s 3… does this mean she could well get measles between now and then?

Or a patent for a single vaccine

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.

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

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.

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..

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!

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

https://www.vaccineinformation.org/testimonies/olivia-dahl/

Roald Dahl's letter about his daughter dying from measles

I remember people doing that with chicken pox. Never heard of it for measles or any other "childhood illness."

I was extremely ill with measles as a child in the 1960s. My GP was worried that I might die.

So, I think you might be talking absolute shite.

@curious79
And if she does get it in all likelihood, she’ll be absolutely fine. It is immunocompromised and already unwell kids who fare badly from measles. When I was growing up our parents would literally take us to peoples houses when they had measles so we could all catch it and be done with it.

This did not happen. Measles was a serious disease that children died from so no parents were trying to make sure their children got it.

I'd consider getting the MMR for yourself if you haven't already. Make sure you get both. In the early '90s they had to have a revaccination programme because issues were found with the measles vaccine from 1970 onwards. Your DC should be okay with one but both provides additional protection. You can have full immunity with just one jab. One is better than none. Unfortunately it's a binary issue - your DC will either be immune or won't be 😞.

in the uk and in 1999 too best way

I grow up before the measles vaccine existed, and measles, mumps, and whooping cough were all things we expected to get some time in our childhood. But I can't remember anyone deliberately exposing a child to measles to get it over and done with. Chickenpox, maybe, but not measles.

ive had measles as did the whole infant school in the 1970s there was no child that was hospitalised or deaf or blind because of it. it was t nice like chicken pox but honestly i don’t think there any need to panic especially if your child has had 1 jab and healthy.
neither of my children were vaccinated andrew wakefield era and i don’t regret it. they have been contacted by the GP on catch up they are adults and it’s their chioice. My nana neighbour’s child was vaccine damaged from the measles individual jab. when you see that against a disease that was mild just not worth risking. everyone has the right to choose

That's not quite right. The single jabs were fine, no question marks over efficiency

The cut off is 1970, loosely based on the introduction of the vaccine and allowing a bit for initial take up.

If born before 1970, the assumption is that you will be immune from the wild disease and so you fall outside the main programme (or did, it might have changed) but sometimes you'll get it on request.
If born after 1970, you are eligible for catch up if you have not received 2 doses of any vaccine that includes the measles component, or if you are unsure of your vaccination status.
If you had your jabs outside UK or privately (including single vaccines after 1997) then NHS will have no record of it and will offer MMR.

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.

You are absolutely right. The best position to be in is to be the one unvaccinated person in a sea of vaccinated people, because you get all the benefits of herd immunity with none of the risks of vaccination.

Problem is, the risk benefit changes pretty dramatically as vaccine levels drop off. As soon as they're low enough that the disease can spread, outcomes for the unvaccinated are dramatically poorer.

Are you not thinking of chicken pox?

Except the research Curious is quoting(Brian Hooker study i think) has been debunked, there is not evidence that the unvaccinated have better outcomes (whatever that is supposed to mean).
Here is a study by KIGGS That shows no difference other than the fact unvaccinated are more likely to get the diseases we vaccinated against

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/

Dr Sears ,in his dodgy vaccine book, says you shouldnt tell your friends and neighbours that you are not vaccinating because you may talk them into not vaccinating and your child will not benefit from herd protection