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In some cultures, there used to be a time when parents were instructed not to count their children, or in some cases not to name them, until they caught, and survived, certain childhood diseases. Parents used to have 8, 9, or 10 children with the hopes that a few would survive to adulthood. Nowadays, modern medicine, and modern living conditions, have made it so that most of us can have just two children and be reasonably assured that they will not die needlessly from a preventable disease. It is undeniable that vaccines played a major role in that.
However, even in today’s world we are constantly reminded just how deadly these diseases can be, none more tragic than the news coming out of The Republic of Congo, where measles has killed at least 1,145 children, and sickened over 115,600 between January and June, 2011. In 2010, 5,407 cases and 82 deaths were reported; in 2009 there were only 899 cases and 26 deaths. I could comment on how tragically horrible this is, but I think the numbers speak for themselves.
Anti-vaccine proponents will say that the reason there have been so many deaths in Congo is because they don’t have the same quality medical care that we do in the developed world. That is mostly true, however, even in the U.S. faced with some of the best medical care money can buy, measles still has a mortality rate of 1-2 per thousand, not to mention other complications such as encephalitis, or deafness, or pneumonia. That means that if the vaccination rates were to drop, and America were to suffer an outbreak as big as the one in Congo, we’d still see about 115-230 dead children, which is why the recent, increasing measles numbers in the U.S. are taken so seriously by the authorities.
Childhood diseases are not harmless; they are not “rites of passage” that all kids should go through. These diseases are deadly, and they are deadlier to our youngest. Anyone who still wants to claim that measles is a harmless nuisance must do so while ignoring over 1,100 dead children in Congo alone. There’s nothing harmless about death, just ask those children’s parents.
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[...] it’s now being reported that chickenpox deaths have plummeted thanks to the vaccine, while 1,100 children in the Congo are dead from measles, a rare disease in nations with strong vaccination against [...]
My husband and I lost our beautiful, precious, active, just turned 8 year old daughter on January 2nd. She died from S.S.P.E. Subacute Sclerosing pan Encephalitis, a fatal complication of the measles virus. We adopted our daughter from an orphanage in Pune, India in 2005. Little did we know that she had had the measles in the orphanage before they got around to vaccinating the children. Her body never fought off the virus. it mutated and went to her brain. She appeared “normal” and full of life for 5 years until last August whne she developed serious neurological symptoms. She ended up in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and was diagnosed with S.S.P.E. within a week. We lost her 5 months after the diagnosis. We did everything we could, using treatment used around the world for S.S.P.E. It didn’t work. Then, a doctor gave her a FluMist and she crashed. She went into a coma almost three weeks after the FluMist. Once, we were able to think somewhat clearly, we began a non-profit called Emmy’s Hope. We are raising awareness in PA and MD about the measles and the measles virus. We are having a forum on Oc. 20th from 7 to 9 pm at the “Y” in Hanover, PA. We will have several types of medical speacialists and speak to parents who may be declining the MMR vaccine for their children. I also have to ask this, in the future, we are looking at another international adoption. Do you know, do the kids in orphanages in the Congo get their measles vaccine? If they are malnourished and get the measles, they could end up with S.S.P.E. just like our daughter. Can you let me know what you see for vaccines in orphanages in the Congo? Thank you. Erica
SSPE is also a listed side effect of the MMR shot (http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf). Merck lists dozens of neurological injuries that may occur in a child vaccinated with MMR. Your child was just as likely to have had her SSPE caused by MMR as wild measles.
If she was malnourished her immune system may have been permanently impaired. The fact that she had SSPE shows she had immune problems. That she “crashed” following FluMist is also an indication her immune system may have been chronically impaired before you met her.
If you thoroughly read Merck’s 5 page list of warnings, contraindications, precautions & adverse events associated with MMR you will also find MMR is associated with impairing children’s immune systems… this is the problem with many of our vaccines, they cause injury in some children.
We should be making an effort to find those children who are susceptible to being damaged by vaccines BEFORE they are injected.
Poor nutrition, toxic exposures (including vaccines), genes… all are involved in causing immune systems to be impaired. Impaired immune systems don’t fight the live pathogens in vaccines well. Some impairments allow the live pathogens to cause disease or to infect various organs (including the brain causing seizures, encephalitis, meningitis, convulsions, SSPE, ocular palsies & much more)
The Congo is one of the last places on earth you should try to adopt a child from. AIDS is rampant, cholera is epidemic, poor nutrition is everywhere, refugees are flooding the country… measles is epidemic in this poorly fed, poorly vaccinated nation.
Spend your money on and invest your time and love in an American child. There are plenty of abandoned/orphaned children in the United States of America. Much more since our economic times have taken such a downturn.
I do have an additional comment about the measles deaths reported by “Skepcabra”, hiding behind an ambiguously insidious nickname, as many shills do. The deaths in the Congo are measles related, not caused by measles, but by secondary infections in children with impaired immune systems. This is what has been reported by WHO representatives on the ground in the Congo.
There is no doubt in my mind that you know this but misreport the facts to suit your agenda of increased drug profits.
The FDA/CDC make the same deliberate mis-reporting of flu deaths, stating in 2008 that there were 36,000 flu deaths in the USA in their headlines and press reeleases. But a more thorough read of both websites will reveal they report the deaths are flu related. If you do an indepth study of CDC info you will find they are actually ESTIMATING those flu related deaths from very limited information.
All part of the scare tactics used by tools of the drug industry, like the FDA & CDC have become, along with Skepcabra
If we followed your logic we’d have to think that HIV doesn’t kill anyone (all those deaths from AIDS were only “HIV related”).
Yeah, doing invasive procedures (which would have a risk greater than one in a million) to find the one in a million (if there’s even that many) who could be permanently injured by a vaccine.
Michael0156:
Post the actual scientific evidence, not a package insert. You have been told countless times that package inserts are lawyer written pieces that include anything that has been reported, even once, and even if it was found to not be caused by the vaccine. It is not data.
Give us the journal, title, and date of the paper that says SSPE can be cause by a vaccine.
Do not post any website, news article or anything written by a doctor whose medical license has been suspended or revoked. It must be a paper that indexed in PubMed and actually peer reviewed (which excludes “Medical Hypotheses”).
This is a story of a child who just died of SSPE. She was one of a few babies infected in a doctor’s practice by an unvaccinated child:
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2011/10/so-predictable-so-sad-natalie-dies-of.html
A translation of a link in that blog article:
Explain that away Mr. Polidori.