Quackpot Medicine: Measles Parties

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Measles is a childhood disease caused by a virus.  It can be deadly, and before the advent and ready availability of measles vaccines, most children caught the disease and hundreds died from it each year - not a staggering number unless one of those who died happened to be a member of your family.  A vaccine was developed to ward off measles in 1963, and by the 1970's most children were being vaccinated with a series of MMR shots (measles, mumps, and rubella) that began when they were around a year old. 

Most states require a series of vaccinations for children to attend public schools, and those include the MMR vaccines.

Measles shots work, and by the year 2000, the disease was thought to have been eliminated in the United States.  But then the internet happened and people who had once turned to medical professionals for their medical advice began using other sources of information, and some of it was malarky.    Measles began a slow comeback.  In 2003 there was one death in the United States attributed to measles, and the next death did not occur until twelve years later 2015.  Then there was a ten-year-break, and this year there have been two more deaths - an unvaccinated adult and an unvaccinated 6-year-old child - as a measles outbreak takes hold in western Texas and eastern New Mexico.  In addition to those two deaths, more than 190 cases of the disease has been reported in that area, an there have been at lest twenty hospitalizations.

This new surge is a result of people choosing not to avail themselves, and more importantly, their children, of measles vaccines.  There has been a strong anti-vax movement festering on the internet for years, and it came of age during the COVID pandemic when the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and others who should have known better, were promoting quack remedies for keeping COVID at bay.  (Remember drinking bleach and using the horse medication Ivermectin?)   Interestingly, Trump got the vaccine for himself but still heaped scorn of health leaders like Dr. Fauci who promoted it. 

Today the on-line medical quackery is still running rampant.  There are medical "experts" all over places like "X (Twitter)" and "Facebook" and QAnon who are trying their damnedest to shield Americans from the  medical advice of "woke" medical institutions like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The current hot trend appears to be something called "measles parties" which were a thing before measles vaccinations came about.  Some parents in those early days would intentionally expose their younger children to the disease in order to build up an immunity so that they would not catch it at an older age when it would supposedly be more dangerous.  Measles parties spread the disease, and the more people who catch it, the more opportunities there are for serious outcomes - and deadly outcomes - and many of those deaths will be children.

If there is something contagious making the rounds, there will be bad advice readily available on how to deal with it.

Good health outcomes are the result of healthy lifestyles and being examined, treated, and advised by trained medical professionals.    When it comes to treating health issues, see your doctor and stay off of the damned internet!