The fact that someone died after receiving a measles vaccine does not mean much. They could have died from being hit by a car, from an allergic reaction to peanuts, from a heart condition, from anything. Literally anyone can report anything in the VAERS database; it only means anything if an investigation establishes that the cause of the death was a vaccine. I am not aware of any verified vaccine deaths. However, there are plenty of deaths that are caused by infectious disease.
In the US, an average of 6 per thousand children die before 1 year of age. Another 20.5 thousand children between ages 1 and 19 die per year (for a rate of about 26 per 100,000). Your chart would be more accurately labeled "Number of deaths from any cause that happened to occur right after receipt of measles vaccine."
In the US, we have very few deaths from measles because we vaccinate sufficiently in most areas to efficiently interrupt chains of transmission. It is impossible to die of a disease if you don't catch it. In other parts of the world, where children are not vaccinated, 400 children die from measles every day for a total of 145,000 deaths per year. Without good healthcare, measles has about a 5-10% death rate--good healthcare brings that down to about 1-3 deaths per thousand. It is still serious; during the current outbreak, 1/5 of the people catching measles have been hospitalized, and the rest have been quarantined.
To put your chart into context: over the last 10 years, 134,259 people have died of measles for every person who died of any cause after receiving a measles vaccine.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known. If you are not vaccinated, and you are exposed, you will catch it. People who have measles are contagious for 2 days before symptoms appear. You do not have to be physically near an infected person to catch it, you can be several yards away or enter a room that an infected person left two hours before.
It stands to (very simple) reason a timespan beginning in 2004 (four years after measles elimination) and ending just before the late 2014 outbreak would see few (albeit not zero) deaths from measles, because the viral infection had been largely eliminated from the United States during the period specifically selected to illustrate the purported innocuous nature of measles.
As to the claim of “deaths” due to the measles vaccine:
The second portion of the claim entailed deaths attributed directly to the MMR vaccine in the same period. Even if a minute number of fatalities were proved to have resulted from the MMR vaccine, it would still be impossible to accurately contrast that figure with deaths due to a disease no longer spreading in the United States during the period selected. That speculation itself, however, is a big "if." According to the article, their figures for MMR deaths were culled from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), but VAERS does not exist to track specific and proved adverse reactions to vaccines. The purpose of the system is clearly denoted on the VAERS site (in a disclaimer not reproduced by the article spreading the claim):
When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/mmrdeaths.asp
Yes. I know - Snopes / s. But I posted that link because it summarized very concisely and IMO, does a good job in debunking the false claims of that particular and other internet memes and viral emails, something that I find Snopes is usually pretty good at doing. There are other science based sites and papers that back it up.
It is also important to consider that among the “adverse” events from vaccinations in the VAERS database include quite benign and often very temporary things like “soreness in the arm at the injection site”, a very low grade fever and even bouts of fainting immediately following receiving a vaccination – typically found in people, most usually in teenage girls (and sometimes boys) who are freaked out by needles of any type and who have a purely hysterical and emotional response to them and not actually caused by the vaccine.
FWIW, when I was 18 years old, a week after I had graduated from HS, I had to get my tonsils out, I had severe tonsillitis to the point that I was near septic from the chronic infection that had gotten very much worse and required immediate surgery. On the morning I was admitted to the hospital for my surgery later that afternoon, I had to have blood drawn.
I remember the nurse putting on the tourniquet and swabbing my arm at the inside of my elbow and telling me, “turn your head and look away, you will feel a little pinch but it will be over quickly and don’t’ look because I don’t want you passing out”. But I wanted to look, I wanted to watch. At the time I was seriously considering going to nursing school, perusing a career in medicine and I told the nurse this and that in HS I had been a blood donor for the last two years and that I wasn’t at all squeamish or afraid of needles. So I watched her find the vein and plunge in the needle and watched as she filled several vials of my blood – I thought it was very cool to watch the process and I didn’t feel at all faint or ill from watching.
She congratulated me and told me I should go into nursing because I had mettle and stomach for it and told me that most of her patients didn’t watch, that I was one of the very few who did during all her years of drawing blood and that she had had a lot of big burly men nearly pass out or actually pass out just by the very idea of getting blood drawn, getting the needle. And I saw this as right next to me was a middle aged guy, a big guy who was long haul truck driver who was being admitted for hernia surgery and needing blood drawn and he was hyper ventilating, feeling sweaty and feeling faint even with just getting his arm swabbed; long before the needle came anywhere near him. After getting my blood drawn I stood up and felt just fine while the big older guy next to me had to lie down as he felt still feeling nauseous and faint. LOL!
FWIW, I had to get another MMR vaccine while I was a junior in HS in 1978 because my parents had lost some of my vaccination records after several moves and we had moved from PA to MD and our family doctor back in PA had retired and they couldn’t get access to those records. It was a requirement back in the late 70’s in the Baltimore City school system, that if you couldn’t prove with documentation from a doctor that you had received certain vaccinations (Small Pox, Polio and the MMR vaccines) you had to be vaccinated or vaccinated again and if not, you would be not allowed to come to school unless you had documentation from a doctor that proved you had a valid medical exception. There were as I recall no religious or conscientious objections. I could prove that I had had my small pox vaccine as I had and still have the scar and my parents did have a record of my Polio vaccine but not of my MMR vaccine of either of my first or second round.
My HS school set up a free vaccination clinic at school for anyone needing or not having a prior vaccination records.
So I stood in line and got my MMR vaccine, probably my third round as my parents were sure I had gotten it but couldn’t prove it. I got my shot and went to my next class, feeling absolutely no ill effects except for just a very mild soreness at the injection site that subsided a day later. But I saw some girls faint or feel nauseous, a few that actually vomited just before or after getting their vaccine shot, and a saw quite a few classmates crying hysterically both before and after getting the vaccine, not because the actual shot caused it, but because they were very squeamish about getting a shot and it was a purely emotional response from getting a needle, but according the VAERS database, such “adverse effects” even like fainting and or having bouts of nausea after receiving a vaccine, could be a reportable as a possible “adverse effect”.
https://vaers.hhs.gov/index
DISCLAIMER: Please note that VAERS staff follow-up on all serious and other selected adverse event reports to obtain additional medical, laboratory, and/or autopsy records to help understand the concern raised. However, in general coding terms in VAERS do not change based on the information received during the follow-up process. VAERS data should be used with caution as numbers and conditions do not reflect data collected during follow-up. Note that the inclusion of events in VAERS data does not imply causality.
Glad to see you are good with graphics. Some questions that I would like to ask the Pro-Vax-average person follows
1. Have you listened or read about the Congressional Hearings on vaccine safety/issues? Rep. Bill Posey asks some tough questions: “Has the CDC done a study comparing vaccinated children with unvaccinated children yet?” Reply from Dr. Boyle: “we have never studied vaccinated versus unvaccinated.” Rep. Posey asks if research by Paul Thorsen clearing thimerosal from causing autism has been validated, and calls him a “humongous scumbag” and one of the most wanted men on the face of the earth. Learn more about Dr. Poul Thorsen -(CDC scientist indicted for fraud, money laundering, etc.) Dr. Boyle replies that that two studies Dr. Thorsen participated in do not invalidate the “larger body” of research on thimerosal and vaccines, and yet just moments before stating that, she admitted that the CDC had only conducted two studies on the issue. - See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/.../video-highlights-from.../...
2. Why does the CDC recommend that newborn babies be vaccinated for Hep B when most newborns are not at risk for catching a blood born disease spread by dirty needles, risky behavior, etc. ?
3.CDC Whistleblower William Thompson admitted numerous things about the research fraud and “paralysis” at the CDC regarding anything to do with autism. He said they were probably 10 years behind. Where is the Media Coverage/Government Public relations campaign to help people understand the ramifications of the conditions Thompson describes????? #CDCWhistleblower
4. I find it amazing that more people are not concerned and dismayed at the attack on personal freedom and the vilification of people who make a personal medical decision. I read a Time magazine article stating that the names, addresses of people who don’t vaccinate should be published and even suggesting people should be marked should they chose not to vaccinate. I thought Oh my God, are we on our way to Nazi Germany?
“If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of known and unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.”
— Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-Founder NVIC