Minimizing the Death of a Child With Measles
Now you get to see the worst of the anti-vaccine movement...
Tragically, this is not the first time many of us have seen the worst side of the anti-vaccine movement, when they work to minimize and/or exploit the death of a child with measles or another vaccine-preventable disease.
Minimizing the Death of a Child With Measles
And that is exactly what anti-vaccine influencers are doing as they react to the news of the death of a child in the Texas outbreak.
Anti-vaccine influencers like Del Bigtree, who reacted by asking:
about the death rate
how old the child was
whether or not the child had other co-morbidities, misstating that it would be a “wild anomaly” if the child had been perfectly healthy and still died with measles
how were they treated, implying that to die with measles, they must not have been treated properly
Wait, why was Del Bigtree asking about the death rate for measles?
Del Bigtree found a letter from the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, a semi-autonomous organizational unit within the National Health Service in England, that actually did misstate the risk of dying with measles.
Not surprisingly, Del Bigtree makes a very big deal about this unfortunate error, even though you can not actually find it on any NHS website. In fact, the NHS measles page doesn’t even mention the risk of dying if you have measles!
But while Del Bigtree says that a ten percent death rate shouldn’t be a laughing matter, it doesn’t stop him from continuing to minimize the death of the child in Texas.
He even brings up the Brady Bunch measles episode!
Carol Brady - I think you better go upstairs and get into bed. I’ll phone the doctor and be right up.
Alice - Measles, let’s hope all of the others don’t start coming down with it.
Carol Brady - Oh, that would be terrible.
An episode that highlights how contagious measles is, as all the kids got sick. And it highlights how worried parents were about measles, as their pediatricians had to make a house call to make sure they were okay!
Which was the point of the episode - which pediatrician were they going to use now that they had a blended family, after all, both the girls' female pediatrician and the boys' male pediatrician were called.
But what doesn’t Del Bigtree tell you about the Brady Bunch measles episode?
When it came out, in 1969, a measles vaccine had already been available for several years and deaths from measles had remarkably dropped. In fact, there were “only” 41 measles deaths in the United States when the Brady Bunch measles episode first aired, down from recent highs of 4-500 deaths thanks to the introduction of the first measles vaccines.
Which explains why TV shows in the 1950s and early 1960s making light of measles. There were too many deaths!
What does this have to do with the death of the child in Texas?
Nothing.
Del Bigtree and other anti-vaccine influencers are just talking about these things to try and change the conversation. They don’t want you to think that a healthy child can die with measles.
“First, any parent who has seen his small child suffer even for a few days with persistent fever of 105°, with hacking cough and delirium wants to see this prevented, if it can be done safely.”
The Importance of Measles as a Health Problem
Surprisingly, Del Bigtree highlights an article by Alexander Langmuir that promoted the routine use of the measles vaccine!
And he tries to hide the risk of death using statistics, but just know that when everyone gets measles, a lot of people end up dying. That’s why we used to have 400 to 500 deaths each year in the pre-vaccine era!
Amazingly, Del Bigtree acknowledges that without a vaccine, nearly 680 people today would die with measles!
Don’t be fooled though. He then goes on to say that we wouldn’t really have that many deaths because of vitamin A, antivirals, and improved medical care, none of which would likely have much of an effect on measles. With all of the improvements in medical care and technological advancements over the years, measles is still deadly!
And remember, it wouldn’t just be measles deaths we would see.
As more and more folks stop vaccinating, we will also see more and more deaths from pertussis, diphtheria, congenital rubella syndrome, Hib meningitis, tetanus, polio, epiglottitis, chicken pox, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, and other vaccine preventable diseases.
But we don’t have to go back to the pre-vaccine era.
Get vaccinated and protected.
#StopTheOutbreaks.
References
LANGMUIR AD, HENDERSON DA, SERFLING RE, SHERMAN IL. The importance of measles as a health problem. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1962 Feb;52(2)Suppl(Suppl 2):1-4. doi: 10.2105/ajph.52.suppl_2.1. PMID: 14462171; PMCID: PMC1522578.
Between 2016 and 2020 scurvy in children more than tripled from 8.2 to 26.7 cases per 100,000. Symptoms can include a rash that does not fade when you press a glass against it and sensitivity to light.
Every maggot Thant voted for Trump is responsible for that 6 year old that died from measles