In the United States, prior to the 1950's, whooping cough, measles, polio, Haemophilus influenza epidemics and rubella killed thousands of infants, children and adults.
As vaccines were developed the rates of these diseases declined dramatically to almost nothing in countries where vaccines are routinely administered.
Prior to the measles vaccine nearly everybody got the measles in the United States and hundreds died from it. Measles can also cause blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and dehydration, pneumonia, ear infections and
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). SSPE is a progressive neurological disorder that is caused by a defective measles virus. It is rare and the incidence of SSPE declined by a least ninety percent in countries that practice wide spread immunization. SSPE progresses until the person is a comatose state and then a persistent vegetative state. It is fatal and death is usually the result of fever, heart failure, or the brain's inability to control the autonomic nervous system.
In 1965, a rubella epidemic infected 12 1/2 million Americans. Two thousand babies died and 11,000 miscarriages were reported. In 2012, 9 cases of rubella were reported.
In 1921, over 15,000 Americans died from diphtheria prior to an available vaccine. Since 2004 only one case of diptheria has been reported.
This is what happens when immunization rates drop. Take Japan for example. In 1974, approximately 80 percent of Japanese children were getting the pertussis/whooping cough vaccine and that year there were 393 cases of pertussis reported. Vaccination rates began to drop until in 1979 only about 10 percent were being vaccinated. In 1979, more than 13,000 people got whooping cough and 41 people died. Routine vaccination resumed and the numbers again dropped.
Vaccines are not without risk and nor are they 100 percent effective. Some are over 90 percent effective some 80-90 percent effective. So because of this it's still possible that an immunized person is susceptible to infection, this is why herd immunity is important to those who the vaccines don't work for. There are also those who can't be immunized at all who need protection.
I suppose at the end of the day choosing not to vaccinate your child means that you are potentially increasing the risk of disease in your child, along with the potential complications for someone other than your child.
In 2013, measles killed 82,100 children world-wide. It's easy to become complacent when you don't see these kind of deaths on a daily basis. In the developing world, measles kills approximately 225 children per day because vaccinations are not available. Children under 5 make up more than fifty percent of the 145,000 deaths attributed to measles annually. In the most impoverished and malnourished areas, measles has a fatality rate of over 10 percent. I wonder what the people who lose their precious children to measles in the third world would think about people opting out of being vaccinated related to a decision made based on pseudoscience and ignorance? The point of immunization campaigns is to reduce global measles deaths. There are people out there begging for these vaccines.
The author of this ridiculous article is spewing forth dangerous and ill-informed nonsense.