[FITZ]

The problem with the measles vaccine (and others) it doesn't get the titers up high enough, a natural infection does better. We had an outbreak of measles in the high schools here a few years ago among kids who had been vaccinated. Of course the adolescent years aren't when someone should get a childhood disease especially mumps for the well-known reasons. One of mine came down with mumps before he was vaccinated at 2 months of age and other than the swollen salivary glands and a little fever wasn't sick.

I think the natural childhood diseases are good and stimulate the immune system. A body that knows how to fight off disease is healthier. People who grow up in too much cleanliness are weaker for that reason.

[Al B.]

I'm no vaccine expert, but what you say makes a lot of sense.

It also makes sense for parents to educate themselves as much as possible on medical matters. I've done a fair bit of poking around medical journals looking into psychiatric drug issues, and it's clear to me that medical science has become as politicized and outcome-based as so many other areas these days.

It's too bad that when a doc with an otherwise good record raises an issue that needs to be objectively refuted, as was the case with Dr. Wakefield and MMR, that instead he gets personally attacked and fired from his job by the vested interests. That should be a concern to anyone interested in getting good information on which to base personal medical decisions.

[TomB]

I think the natural childhood diseases are good and stimulate the immune system. A body that knows how to fight off disease is healthier. People who grow up in too much cleanliness are weaker for that reason.

Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, between 3 and 4 million cases of measles were reported in the United States each year, with more than 300 deaths from the disease. That's in addition to the thousands who suffered blindness or brain damage. These days the United States has about 100 cases a year and no deaths. When measles vaccination rates went down in 1990, there was an outbreak of 28,000 cases of measles, and 30 children died.

More recently there was an outbreak in Italy.

"Experts say a measles epidemic in Italy, which has killed three children, is a lesson to parents about the importance of vaccination. It is estimated more than 24,000 people could have been infected with measles.

The three children who died were aged six months, four and 10.

There were 981 reported cases of measles in the Campania region of southern Italy between January and May this year. Thirteen developed encephalitis, which can cause brain damage and 63 pneumonia.

In Campania, where the largest city is Naples, only 53% of children have been vaccinated against measles by the age of two."

Now to me that doesn't sound like it's such a "good" disease.

[aruanan]

I think the natural childhood diseases are good and stimulate the immune system. A body that knows how to fight off disease is healthier. People who grow up in too much cleanliness are weaker for that reason.

Umm, your immunological ignorance is showing. A vaccinated body is one that knows how to "fight off" disease in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons as a body that gets the full-blown disease. The benefit of the vaccination is that it provokes an immune response without the risk of fighting an uncontrolled bout with the wild-type pathogens. Fitz's earlier statement that "healthy children can tolerate measles, mumps, and rubella very well" is tautologous. If a kid doesn't tolerate the condition well, then he must not have been healthy. Hyuck-hyuck! But then, by definition, someone who comes down with an illness, childhood or otherwise, "tolerated" or not, is not healthy. Vaccinations provide the protection without the discomfort of a "well-tolerated" bout of the disease or the dangers of a less than well-tolerated bout. They provide a challenge to the immune system without the major assault on the body.