As we have new reports of measles deaths, it is not surprising that anti-vaccine influencers are once again pushing hard to get you to believe that measles vaccine deaths are common.
Of course, they aren’t.
Let’s Talk About Measles Vaccine Deaths
The MMR vaccine is safe, with few risks, and has rarely been associated with causing any deaths.
But then why do anti-vaccine influencers continue to make claims that there have been hundreds of measles vaccine deaths?
They are simply counting deaths in VAERS.
But that’s not all!
To get to over 500 deaths, as we have said before, they are including reports in VAERS that come from outside the United States!
And they are including reports that go all of the way back to 1980.
Now if you don’t include foreign reports, there are far fewer reports of measles vaccine deaths in VAERS.
The list is down to 309 deaths since 1980 - or 6 to 7 each year.
While that still sounds like a lot, know that just because they are in VAERS, it doesn’t mean that they are true vaccine deaths.
In fact, few, if are true vaccine deaths.
What else?
Since 1980, at least 330 million doses of a measles-containing vaccine, either MMR or MMRV, have been given in the United States.
So that would mean that the risk of death, if all of the VAERS deaths were true vaccine deaths, is only about 0.000094% after each dose or fewer than 1 in a million.
Of course, the risk of getting a measles-containing vaccine is even lower, because nearly all of the VAERS deaths are not true vaccine deaths!
And then there is the risk of dying because you got sick with measles…
A risk that is about 1 in 1,000 to 3,000 because of complications, like pneumonia and encephalitis.
And then there is the additional risk of dying from SSPE, a late complication of measles.
Risks of dying that are easy to see are true risks!
Not fake risks created by anti-vaccine influencers to scare you away from getting vaccinated and protected.