Measles and vaccination

Posted 3/20/19

Measles is making a comeback in the U.S., and that includes here, where the Sullivan County Public Health Department (PHD) has been notified of two cases of measles in county residents. An advisory …

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Measles and vaccination

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Measles is making a comeback in the U.S., and that includes here, where the Sullivan County Public Health Department (PHD) has been notified of two cases of measles in county residents.

An advisory from PHD says, “The single best way to prevent measles is to be vaccinated. Individuals should receive two doses of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to be protected.”

These days, however, a growing number of parents are not allowing their children to be vaccinated because of concerns that MMR vaccine is linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other harmful impacts. The notion that vaccines pose a risk, however, has been rejected by mainstream health organizations such as the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO lists “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the biggest threats facing global health. Vaccine hesitancy is defined as “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines.” WHO says vaccines are currently preventing two to three million deaths per year, but vaccine hesitancy is having a negative impact on the numbers. Measles, for example, has seen a 30% increase in cases globally from 2016 to 2018, and cases are on the rise in the U.S.

At least part of the hesitancy around MMR can be traced to a paper published by Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor who, with several colleagues, published a study in 1998 involving MMR and autism. As the History of Vaccines explains (www.bit.ly/vaccinesautismTRR) “Though in the paper they stated that they could not demonstrate a causal relationship between MMR vaccination and autism, Wakefield suggested in a video released to coincide with the paper’s publication that a causal relationship existed between the MMR and autism.”

Questions about Wakefield’s methodology were raised, as well as the fact that the study was financed by lawyers who were interested in pursuing lawsuits against companies that produced the MMR vaccine.

The study, which had been published by The Lancet, was retracted by the journal in 2010, by which time most of the authors had removed their names from it. A few months later, Wakefield was barred from practicing medicine by Britain’s General Medical Council because he had shown disregard for children’s welfare during his research.

Nevertheless, the link between vaccines and autism and other negative impacts lives on. When Donald Trump was campaigning to become President, he brought up the alleged link between vaccines and autism during a campaign debate and on Twitter, and has done so at least 20 times since.

According to the British newspaper The Independent (www.bit.ly/trumpvaccinesTRR), before the election, Trump met with Wakefield and other anti-vaxxers and promised to address the issue if elected. In a 2014 tweet, Trump said, “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes— AUTISM. Many such cases!”

There have been many studies refuting this stand, most recently a Danish study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (www.bit.ly/annalsvaccines). Researchers showed that there is not a link between MMR and autism. The study focused on 657,461 children born in Denmark from 1999 through December 31, 2010.

“Conclusion: The study strongly supports that MMR vaccination does not increase the risk for autism, does not trigger autism in susceptible children and is not associated with clustering of autism cases after vaccination. It adds to previous studies through significant additional statistical power and by addressing hypotheses of susceptible subgroups and clustering of cases.”

The study was funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and Danish Ministry of Health.

A previous study on MMR and autism was published in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2015. In an accompanying editorial by Bryan King, director of the Seattle Children’s Autism Center, King wrote, “Taken together, some dozen studies have now shown that the age of onset of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, the severity or course of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and now the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.”

The scientific community is united and certain there is no link between MMR vaccination and autism. But, as with climate change, there are significant segments of the population that reject the conclusion of the scientists and continue to withhold vaccines from their children.

According to the CDC, before a vaccine was available, three to four million people were infected with measles in the U.S. every year, 48,000 were hospitalized, and up to 500 died. So far this year, 228 people have been infected, and most of them were not vaccinated.

editorial, health, measles, doctor, vaccination, sullivan county

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