Why I'm pushing on the measles vaccine issue

The risks and benefits for the vaccine are very different from the mRNA Covid shots, but the underlying principle is not: parents (and all of us) deserve honest information about medical treatments.

In 2021, officials at the Centers for Disease Control did everything they could to dismiss and then downplay the potential myocarditis risks of the mRNA Covid jabs.

Ultimately, the CDC had to admit the truth, infuriating many parents who felt (correctly) the agency had misled them.

But it is not as if the myocarditis risk was common. The teenage boys at the highest risk faced odds of 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 5,000 of being hospitalized for myocarditis after mRNA shots. And most cases resolved without serious damage — though there were exceptions, like the terrible case of Simone Scott, a college student who died of heart failure six weeks after her second Covid mRNA shot.

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The CDC was wrong to hide those complications.

And it would have been wrong to hide them even if the Covid mRNA shots had worked perfectly.

The CDC and other health authorities have a moral obligation to disclose the risks of the treatments they are offering — much less mandating. That disclosure cannot be sloppy or half-hearted. Agencies need to investigate those risks, estimate them accurately, and publish their best estimates.

Further, they have a moral obligation not to try to scare people into taking treatments, particularly when those treatments are vaccines, which by definition are being offered to healthy people.

Their belief in the goodness of what they’re doing or the need for vaccinations does not exempt them from these obligations. It is the definition of informed consent.

And if they fail in those obligations, independent reporters need to call them out, not cheer them on.

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That’s my philosophy about public health, vaccination, and informed consent.

It exists independently of my feelings about any particular vaccine.

The measles vaccine is a far better medical intervention than the Covid shots. It provides strong protection for many years. And measles is more dangerous and contagious than Covid for kids.

But febrile seizure is a real complication of the measles vaccine, and febrile seizures are at least as harmful as most (though not all) myocarditis cases the mRNAs cause — not least because of the fear they inspire in parents.

And as I documented yesterday, the CDC is providing inaccurate estimates of the febrile seizure risk.

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(From a reader… let’s hope she’s recovered the 10 years!)

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And that is why — even though I support the use of the measles vaccine — I will keep reporting on its risks.

Health officials, doctors, and drug companies owe the public the evidence-based truth about the dangers and benefits of medical treatments. All medical treatments, including vacccines.

If they won’t give it to you, I will.

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(And I hope you will help support my work, with a subscription…)

…or a one-time donation!

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Yesterday’s piece: