While Kids Are Dying, Aaron Siri Promotes the Benefits of Having Measles
The Real Truth About Vaccines
As Aaron Siri continues to promote the idea that there are benefits to having measles, you will notice that he rarely mentions all the kids dying because they have measles.
And the only time he does, it is to blame something or someone else for their deaths. It is never simply that measles is a life-threatening infection that mostly kills those who are unvaccinated.
Aaron Siri Promotes the Benefits of Having Measles
Instead, he pushes the idea that having measles is good for you!
It’s not.
Well, there is maybe the benefit of a few extra months of immunity for your infant vs. maternal immunity that is vaccine induced. That can mean infants need to get an early MMR in an outbreak situation…
But then there is the fact that measles is a life-threatening infection, with complications like pneumonia and encephalitis, plus the risk of death from SSPE, a late complication of having measles.
And then add on that people with measles can suffer from immune amnesia for at least two or three years.
“One of the most unique—and most dangerous—features of measles pathogenesis is its ability to reset the immune systems of infected patients. During the acute phase of infection, measles induces immune suppression through a process called immune amnesia. Studies in non-human primates revealed that MV actually replaces the old memory cells of its host with new, MV-specific lymphocytes. As a result, the patient emerges with both a strong MV-specific immunity and an increased vulnerability to all other pathogens.”
Measles and Immune Amnesia
Immune amnesia that leaves you more susceptible to other infections, including some infections that they may have already had!
Now that doesn’t sound like a benefit of having measles, does it?
And it is not something that Aaron Siri ever mentions…
“The bottom line is that, prior to the introduction of the vaccine, measles was considered a mild childhood infection, like chickenpox. The ecological relationship humans developed with measles through millennia did not eliminate measles; and having had measles confers survival benefits that appear to far exceed the infection’s negative effects.”
Aaron Siri
Instead, Aaron Siri cherry-picks a few small studies, leaving out all the studies that contradict his studies that find benefits, to try to make his case that measles is good for you.
For example, while he touts a study that says measles may protect against allergic disease in children, he doesn’t mention all the other studies that found it didn’t! Or the studies that found that MMR vaccination is protective against allergies and asthma.
Similarly, he talks about a single study in Japan which found an association between measles and mumps infections with lower risks of mortality from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, a study that didn’t check titers and simply went by self-reporting, even though nearly all the people in the study should have had those infections in the pre-vaccine era.
Lastly, the evidence that measles infections prevent cancer is a single, poorly done, non-peer reviewed study and a few case reports that showed temporary cancer remissions after people had measles.
Measles doesn’t prevent cancer.
What can prevent cancer? Several vaccines, including Gardasil and the hepatitis B vaccines!
Aaron Siri Thinks Measles Is a Mild Disease
Aaron Siri also tries to make the case that measles is a mild disease.
How can he say measles is a mild disease?
“Scanning down from the top of the table, you’ll note that when a vaccine was introduced for each disease, U.S. deaths were already rare.”
Aaron Siri
Because Aaron Siri thinks that 400 deaths a year from measles is rare.
And he is okay with thousands of children dying each and every year from vaccine preventable diseases!
Are you?
But don’t you get life-long immunity after having a natural measles infection?
Sure.
But you have to earn it.
You have to endure a week or more of a high fever and other symptoms of measles and the risk of death!
Or you can just get vaccinated and protected and have that same life-long immunity.
The Benefits of Measles Vaccines
What else does Aaron Siri leave out when talking about his supposed benefits of having measles?
“Consideration should be given to continuing measles vaccine even when measles has been eradicated.”
Measles vaccination and reduced child mortality: Prevention of immune amnesia or beneficial non-specific effects of measles vaccine?
He doesn’t talk about the folks who think that the benefits of being vaccinated are so great, that we should continue to give measles vaccines even after we eradicate measles!
“The program lead to significant improvements in childhood health as measles causes "immune amnesia", leaving individuals susceptible to illness from other diseases. We find the measles vaccine led to large increases in educational attainment for both men and women, with the effects being concentrated in lower secondary school for women and split between lower and upper secondary school for men.”
The long term benefits of the measles vaccine in Mexico
But it’s no surprise that he doesn’t talk about all the benefits of being vaccinated.
That’s not what he is paid to do…
I had measles at 6 months. It was not mild. It caused severe tonsillitis and I had to have surgery at 2 years old to remove my tonsils and repair the hernia I developed from coughing so much.
I was born before the MMR was developed.
And I later developed both allergies and asthma.
And the kicker? I got them again at 16 (because getting them before your immune system is fully formed means you can get them again) and almost died.
Yah. It’s mild. /s
Perhaps Siri could have consoled my mother who told me of the fact that I had a fever of 104 F in the middle of the night at age three, crying uncontrollably, and did not recognize her or my grandmother. My father worked nights and couldn't be reached to take me to the ER, so she phoned the pediatrician who, in those days, actually came to our apartment in the middle of the night. After instructing my mother to place me in a cooling bath, gave me medication to lower my temperature and calm me, stayed for a period of time until I had fallen asleep, and scheduled a followup appointment for the following morning. Obviously, this was no "Brady Bunch" experience for me or my family, and Siri is clearly no pediatrician.