Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:37:51 -0800

The Collective wrote:

Having just read your article on VIA mailing list (Part 1 below) I would like to say that I know of many doctors who refuse to
acknowledge that measles is present in a child. Previously to the measles jab and especially the MMR shot they were more
willing to diagnose measles in infants/children etc.

My own daughter (unvaccinated) had meales at 15 months old and was poorly for one week only. We treated her with
homoeopathic and herbal remedies and regularly sponged her down during the high temperature. She is one of the healthiest
children I know and has only been poorly three times in her entire life (now 23 mo) and is the fittest person in her nursery (the
others have had their shots). The point being that despite the fact we had self diagnosed the illness and had it confirmed by our
homoeopath and various others our own GP would not admit this was what she had and merely diagnosed "a non-specific viral
infection" which I have discovered is quite common these days. He did not want to have to report the illness using the Yellow
Card scheme as this would indicate a failure of the vaccination programme. Incidently, at that age many of her peer group had
been recently shot with MMR and we feel that she picked up the live virus from a vaccinated child.

Finally, I find it astonishing to think that the FDA et al think that they can eradicate measles by 2000, the concept of eradication
by vaccination is more a good political goal than an achievable target. However, if they do not diagnose outbreaks etc when
that occur the statistics look a whole site better, and even the most optomistic projections only say that 10% of notifiable
disease outbreaks are reported, many suggest the figure could be as low as 1%.

I could go on about new diseases that have taken off since vaccines begun but I think you must know much about that already.

Vaccination Awareness Network UK

Dear Meryl,
The studies of measles vaccine and maternal measles antibodies show that before 12 months, the presence of maternal
antibodies prevents a significant number of children from responding. That is where the US recommendation of giving the MMR
vaccine at 12-15 months comes from. There is a study from 1977 which looked at 34 children and found that only 79% got
protection from measles vaccine at 12 months because of maternal antibodies still in circulation, but further studies on larger
numbers of children established 12 months as the earliest age to get good protection. It is clear that children would not respond
well at 9 months. Is there somewhere advising to give measles vaccine at 9 months?? Only if there is an epidemic in the area?
As for giving a second dose of the vaccine because some children do not respond to the first dose being a cannon to blow out
a candle, I'm not wild about that policy, personally, but it is less expensive to give the vaccine than to measure antibody titers on
all children (NOTE: As an immunologist, I would much rather {and do} measure titers rather than blindly give follow-up
vaccines. I am just stating the way that things currently are, not saying that this is the best way.) A study of 679 children who
got measles vaccine between 15-17 months showed that by age 5 years, 5.4% did not have measles antibodies. Of that 5.4%,
all but one child responded to the second dose of the vaccine.

The last article cited below gives very nice graphs of the numbers of measles cases in immunized and nonimmunized children in
the US from 1985-1994. Since instituting the second dose of the vaccine, the disease has shifted from being found in
adolescents who had gotten a single dose in early childhood (but who had not responded) to being more common in the
unvaccinated population. Not in the article, but from a meeting, the number of measles cases in the US in 1997 was less that
150 (in 1989, the number was 17,800), which is why I feel that the age for measles vaccine might be able to be increased to at
least 2 years... not likely when the goal of the Infectious Disease community is the elimination of measles throughout the
Americas by the year 2000.

Albrecht p, et al., Persistence of maternal antibody in infants beyond 12 months: Mechanism of measles vaccine failure. J Peds,
91(5),p 715-718, 1977.

Wilkins J and Wehrle P, Additional evidence against measles vaccine administration to infants less than 12 months of age. J
Peds, 94(6), p.865-869, 1979.

Markowitz L, et al.,Persistence of measles antibody after revaccination. J Infect Dis, 166(1), p205-208, 1992.

Watson J et al., An evaluation of measles revaccination among school-entry-aged childen. Pediatrics, 97, p. 613-618, 1996

Am. Academy of Peds Comm on Infectious Diseases, Age for routine administration of the second dose of MMR vaccine.
Pediatrics, 101(1), P. 129-133, 1998.

http://194.116.9.49/vfiles/za357aa.htm