"The Great Measles Misunderstanding"

Recently Dateline NBC had a Sunday evening special report regarding vaccines and their possible link to Autism. The report specifically highlighted the MMR vaccine and it's increasing link to Autism, as many parents had reported their child neurologically and behaviorly "normal" until around 17-24 months, typically the range of time when the MMR vaccine is scheduled to be administered. I recently read an article in the "Pathways" magazine titled, "The Great Measles Misunderstanding," written by Dr. Darrel Crain, D.C. In summary, the article stated that about 40 years ago, measles was acquired by 90% of children and was known as "just another annoying childhood illness." Measles related death had also declined by 90% before the "pre-vaccine era" due to better standards of living, better nutrition, better medical care, and more effective sanitation. But due to the high incidence of illness, in 1967 health authorities decided to push the need to eradicate measles, leading to a dangerous trail of events. The first vaccine produced was an inactivated strain of the measles, or "killed" measles vaccine. An estimated 600,000 to 900,000 people in the US received this vaccine. After vast amounts were vaccinated, they found that the vaccine sensitized the recipient to the measles without providing adequate protection. Because of this, those who were vaccinated with the "killed vaccine" were found to develop atypical measles, an autoimmune disorder (meaning your immune system attacks itself)causing high fevers, unusual rashes, pneumonia, and pleural edema (or swelling/inflammation of the pleural space between your lungs, causing difficulty to breath and/or fluid to accumulate in the lungs). Because of this atypical response, the MMR, or "live vaccine" was created in 1971, thinking this vaccine would be much safer and provide better immunity. Shortly after this vaccine was released in 1980, several research studies were completed , finding that outbreaks of measles can still occur in students in secondary schools even when more than 99% of the students were vaccinated.
The article then goes on to state that before the widespread vaccination of measles babies were not at risk because they acquired immunity through their mother's blood. And adults were not at risk because they gained lifelong immunity as a child. But because of the vaccinations, both groups are now at greater risk of severe disease and complications, noted as an "unintended outcome" of the vaccination. Now the fear is what will happen as we eventually replace natural measles with the vaccine measles? It is said that despite short-term success in eliminating measles, long-term projections show we are at a higher risk of infection than we started with in the "pre-vaccine era". So what if this happens and our child is exposed to the measles? New research suggests that supplementing with Vitamin A has been repeatedly effective in clinical trials all over the world to reduce the infection and lower the risk of death. With this being said, in the future we might see those who once criticized parents for not vaccinating their children, speaking words of gratitude! Just a thought! :)