There have been plenty of U.S. measles deaths. Vaccine deaths, OTOH, are non-existent.
You are not aware. Don't feel bad, many are not aware of many things -the "hands up don't shoot" crowd comes to mind. The free marketplace of information and ideas is becoming less and less free everyday. However, you and others; regardless, 'feel' you can dictate what another individual aware parent chooses to do regarding vaccinations as long as the mob is on your side.
Like any scientist, when I say that I am unaware of something, it means that I have looked exhaustively for that very thing. Documented evidence of serious harm or death resulting from vaccines simply does not exist. (By "evidence", I mean reports published in peer-reviewed journals or on credible sites like the CDC website.) OTOH, the evidence of serious harm and death from the diseases that are vaccine-preventable is abundant.
Using the MedAlerts search engine, which facilitates an online search of the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database, as of December 14, 2014 there have been 7,060 serious adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in connection with measles vaccine since 1990, with over half of those occurring in children three years old and under. Of these events 336 were deaths, with over half of the deaths occurring in children under three years of age. Adverse events following MMR vaccination reported to VAERS include:
The VAERS system is extremely misused by anti-vax disinformation peddlers. Most people who fall for anti-vax propaganda do not have any understanding of what the VAERS system is, nor do they have any fundamental comprehension of the principle behind the adage that correlation does not equal causation.
People die every single day. In 2011, about 53 per 100,000 children died, or a total of 44,226 children below age 19, died. In addition, about 6 babies per 1,000 born die before their first birthday. It is inevitable that some of these deaths, by coincidence alone, will occur soon after the child has received a vaccination. Furthermore, as these authors state in their review of VAERS data, "making general assumptions and drawing conclusions about vaccinations causing deaths based on spontaneous reports to VAERS – some of which might be anecdotal or second-hand – or from case reports in the media, is not a scientifically valid practice [emphasis mine]." In other words, the VAERS data alone indicates nothing. In order to pull any real data from VAERS, every report entered into the system must be investigated in order to determine its validity and the actual cause of the adverse event (which, in most cases, has nothing to do with a vaccine).
IF vaccines are the sacred cow that many claim then ONLY those not vaccinated actually have skin in the risk game and only they should determine such choices weighing potential adverse effects versus potential benefits.
Every person who chooses not to vaccinate is, in fact, making that choice on behalf of people who do not consent to having that choice made for them. Those unvaccinated children are a danger to children too young to be vaccinated, to people with compromised immune systems, to elderly people whose immune system function is declining, to pregnant women, and others who cannot be vaccinated due to valid medical reasons. Vaccination is a population--not personal, but population--health issue. And since the majority of the population wants to be protected against those deadly diseases, they are not very supportive of anti-vaxxers' choice to spread disease.
There are many examples of "choice" being limited where other people's health and safety are concerned. You are not allowed to drive drunk, you can't shoot firearms willy-nilly in your neighborhood, you can't go into a restaurant kitchen to taste what's cooking, you can't hold a bonfire in the middle of a freeway, etc. In order for a civilization to function, there are limits on personal behavior--and some of those limits abridge your "right" to spread potentially deadly disease to others.
LOL The government employs many 'experts' that support the many things they impose for a myriad of reasons. Thank God the stupid people have such experts to lend creditability to those who must impose their will upon others...
What I find utterly amazing is that people believe that their ability to read and memorize whole tracts of anti-vax propaganda makes them more knowledgeable about vaccines, immune system function, risk analysis, etc., than the scientists and physicians who actually spend years studying human immune function and infectious diseases. The ability to copy-paste pseudoscience does not confer knowledge equal to that of a PhD.
What I find amazing is the number of people who feel they are everyones better and know better what others must do. Some call themselves scientists with PHDs LOL. Simply put, there are risks associated with any medication/vaccine and when one reads about such that are required to be published for INFORMED CONSENT, NOT IMPOSED CONSENT they then weigh the risks and make a choice. A choice that some do not like and justify negating by citing their own risk criteria -YES me must protect the herd at the expense of the few.... WHY do they not publish these herd risks on medicine/vaccine required risk disclosures?
LOL -the risk to the herd of catching measles and dying from measles IS the 'what if' and 'sky is falling' fear mongering. The actual risks published and provided with the medicine/vaccine -that IS the science that those who may take the medicine/vaccine use to make an informed consent.