Measles is a self-limiting childhood viral infection… in rare cases measles can cause brain damage and death.

Public health officials are less worried about the kids who get measles and have mild symptoms – they are more worried about the brain damage and death that can occur to certain people who develop the real infection. Vaccination is meant to decrease the risk of the severe symptoms to the recipient of the vaccination, and secondarily, help decrease transmission in the community (which would then help people who legitimately can’t get vaccinated). The PIC group almost understands the relationship, but as is usual, severe side effects of vaccine preventable disease are too rare for them to care.

This graph represents a substantially impaired understanding of basic statistics on the part of PIC, malicious deception, or both. Mortality rate is defined as the proportion of people who die of measles, after catching the disease. This graph presented as an isolated item, is a correct representation of that statistic. However, this statement becomes deception when they use it to claim that measles vaccine doesn’t matter because the mortality rate already decreased. There remains, even in the modern age, multiple reports of serious measles outcomes or deaths in kids who contracted the actual disease. The next way this graph is incomplete, is that it cannot account for the most common source of measles in the United States in 2024 – bringing it home from another region of the world with higher measles transmission. The most direct refutation of this graph, is that it should be always displayed alongside graphs of numbers of cases. While the amount of people directly dying from measles is variable (there was a surge in 2019), the risks of severe disease, hospitalization, and death recur every time there is a surge. For all these reasons, the quoted graph above isn’t the whole story. Put in very simple terms for the PIC team, a fraction is not the same as a whole number.

Malnutrition, especially vitamin A deficiency, is a primary cause of about 90,000 measles deaths annually in underdeveloped nations.

This is the most common antivax trope trying to link vitamins to protection against measles disease. As is my usual piece of advice, I recommend going back to the original source where they got this claim from. The source cited is the Pan-American Health Organization, which when you actually click on the link, contains no statements at all about vitamin A. This would make the reader suspect that their citation is invented out of thin air. PIC has committed outright citation falsification. We can go instead to a citation that does explain where this link comes from, which is from a few old epidemiological studies. Vitamin A is a crucial nutrient for building effective eyesight, and there are still areas of the world that have children with poor night vision due to lack of vitamin A. The assertion of vitamin A helping measles has been tested by clinical trial – and measles isn’t treated by vitamin A. People who lack vitamin A need it replaced – but the best prevention for measles is still the measles vaccination. Citation 13, attempting to say that the WHO recommends vitamin A for measles, engages in additional citation falsification. The actual recommendation the WHO gives is to recommend vitamin A in regions of the world where measles is happening ALONGSIDE vitamin A deficiency. We need to be very precise with our language here – saying that vitamin A deficiency should be corrected, is not the same thing as saying that the vitamin is the CURE of measles (which would be a false statement).

What treatments are available for measles? Immunoglobulin and Ribavirin.

While an IV antibody exists, it carries more risks that the measles vaccines. The antibody is less effective and has timeline restrictions; to be effective, it can only be given within the first six days of measles exposure. Ribavirin can technically be given, but it carries a much longer list of side effects than the measles vaccine. Prevention is a much more pleasant affair.