Despite doctors diagnosing hundreds of people with measles and journalists pronouncing there’s a ‘deadly’ measles epidemic (caused by Andrew Wakefield, of course), only a handful of cases have actually been confirmed by a lab as being the measles virus.
See this NHS Wales document on confirmed cases of measles (scroll down to page 18):
http://www2.nphs.wales.nhs.uk:8080/CommunitySurveillanceDocs.nsf/3dc04669c9e1eaa880257062003b246b/38c4ee86b5fd701e80257b41003cdc52/$FILE/monthly%20lab%20201303.pdf
This is markedly different from the hundreds of measles cases reported (scroll down to page 4):
http://www2.nphs.wales.nhs.uk:8080/CommunitySurveillanceDocs.nsf/3dc04669c9e1eaa880257062003b246b/abefff808d75f76580257b41003cf988/$FILE/monthly%20notif%20201303.pdf
This means that most reported cases of measles are not actually measles. They have been mis-diagnosed by the doctors, possibly by some in a bid to encourage higher uptake of MMR.
The medical profession are blaming the parents of teenagers who did not have their MMR jabs when Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 case series on MMR, autism and bowel disease was published.
However, another document from the NHS shows that the highest number of reported cases (not confirmed) was largest in the 1-4 year old group, the age at which most children are having their MMR jabs.
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/888/page/66389#d
The coverage rate for the first dose of MMR in Wales is 94.3% and for the second dose it is 89.9%
An MMR programme for 16 year olds also had an uptake rate of 91%, so the few confirmed cases of measles wouldn’t appear to have anything to do with apathy about vaccination or about the MMR/autism controversy (indeed, rates have increased since 1998).
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/page.cfm?orgid=457&pid=54144
It is a shame that parents will never know the vaccine status of those who were confirmed to have measles, but I suspect some of them may have already been vaccinated.
Commentary by Joanna, Founder VAN UK.
