Measles Leaves You Vulnerable to Deadly Diseases

The anti-vaccination movement often describes measles as a benign condition of childhood, not really a major health problem. The anti-vaxxer movement is wrong. The truth is, measles can be a deadly disease. About two or three out of every 1000 children who contracts measles develops a brain infection resulting in encephalitis. Measles can also leave children blind. Even worse, getting measles destroys a child's immunity to many other diseases, some of which are far more deadly.

Measles Causes Immune Amnesia

Before the measles vaccination became commonly available in the 1960's, millions of children got the infection and tens of thousands of children died from the infection every year. After the measles vaccine became available in 1963, cases of measles in countries where the vaccine was used dropped by over 99 percent.

However, it turned out that vaccinated children weren't just immune to measles. In every country where the vaccine was introduced, childhood infections became less common generally. It was as if the vaccine protected against more than just measles, and in a roundabout way, it does.

The reason the measles vaccine protects against more diseases than just measles is the unusual effects the measles virus has on the immune system. The measles virus kills white blood cells. White blood cell counts fall precipitously about the same time the infection causes the well-known red spots. About a week, later white blood cell counts usually come back to normal. The problem is that these new white blood cells don't "remember" the infections that the old white blood cells had learned how to fight. Even when children recover from measles, their immune systems have to learn how to fight other common infections all over again.

Getting Measles Increases the Risk of Encephalitis and Pneumonia

Immunologist Michael Mina of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, went through decades of public health records before and after the introduction of measles vaccine. He found that the children who developed measles lost, on average, about 27 months of "memory" in their immune systems. During that 27 months, children who had had measles were more susceptible to pneumonia and also to encephalitis. Sometimes the child's immune system took such a heavy hit that pneumonia and/or encephalitis developed while they were still sick with measles (although this wouldn't happen unless the child was also exposed to the microbes that cause those diseases at the same time as measles), but sometimes pneumonia and encephalitis came along a little later.

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Catching measles resets the child's immune system back to the level of activity it had when the child was newborn. The immune system has to learn how fight common childhood infections like colds and flu all over again. Measles also wipes out immunity to diphtheria, typhoid, and whooping cough acquired through other vaccines. This leaves the child vulnerable to these infections not just as a child but also as an adult, when they can be far more severe. It's possible that catching measles wipes out immunity from all the vaccinations the child has received.

How to Minimize the Risk of Measles

Parents in the vaccine denial movement often say that the consequences of getting measles are easier for the child than the consequences of getting the vaccine. Parents in developing countries might disagree. Every year 30 million unvaccinated children come down with the disease. One million of those children die. Another 15,000 to 30,000 are left blind.

Even if your child survives the disease, and in countries like Russia, Canada, and the United States, as well as other developed countries, survival is likely with good medical care, there can still be problems. The consequences of getting measles can be multiplied by coming down with whooping cough, diphtheria, typhoid, influenza, and hepatitis, all of which are more likely after a bout with measles. It's true that once you catch measles your immune system gives you immunity to future measles infections for the rest of your life. The problem is that it forgets how to respond to other major diseases.

Still can't bring yourself to get your child vaccinated? Here's what you must do:

• Keep your child away from any other children who may have measles. That's easier said than done, because an infected child is contagious for four days before the rash appears and continues to be contagious for four days after the rash disappears. You need to keep your child away from other children who may have been exposed to measles. Typically this would be a child returning home after a trip to a developing country where measles vaccine is not used.
• Don't let your kids play with "boogers." Snotty noses are potentially dangerous. The measles virus is spread through aerosol droplets of mucus and saliva that get into the air with coughing and sneezing. The virus can survive in mucus on household surfaces for two to four hours. Touch the mucus, and you can catch the virus.
• Get treatment for your child as soon as you notice the prodrome, the initial stages, of the disease. There won't be any symptoms at all for about seven days after exposure. Then your child may have a very high fever, up to 105°F (40.6°C). There are usually also cough, red and irritated eyes, and muscle aches for up to a week before the rash breaks out. 

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• Symptoms are much less severe when the child gets vitamin A. An infant not yet six months old gets 50,000 IU of vitamin A in two doses one day apart. A baby six months to a year old gets 100,000 IU of vitamin A in two doses one day apart. Children over the age of one year get 200,000 IU of vitamin A in two doses one day apart. Vitamin A helps prevent damage to the eyes and brain. If your child is deficient in vitamin A, then there should be a third dose of the vitamin about two weeks after symptoms resolve. Most of the cases of blindness occur in children who have been given vitamin-deficient diets.

Measles causes last damage to the immune system. There are rare instances of bad reactions to the vaccine. That is not to be denied. However, there are even worse and far more common reactions to the disease itself.