With the new outbreak of measles in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, you’re hearing a lot these days about how important it is to have your child vaccinated for measles.
So what’s the big problem with getting measles anyway? That used to happen all the time back in my youth. It happened to me and all my brothers and sisters. Kids got sick and had to stay at home in bed for a week or so.
So what’s the big deal?
The most commonly stated reason is that kids who get measles can die from it. And that’s true. But it’s pretty rare.
According to the United States Center of Disease Control, only about one child in a thousand dies from measles. That doesn’t sound exactly like a panic situation to me. And think of this. If one child dies from the same virus that 999 children don’t die from, it is obvious that the virus had nothing to do about it or all the kids would have died. I don’t care what virus it is. The problem is never the virus, it’s always the patient. This is dramatically pointed out in a meta-analysis from a few years ago, which shows that if a child dies from measles, a lot of the time it’s because of poor nutrition, not the virus itself.
Investigators analyzed six published studies that looked at the role that nutritional status played in whether or not a child died from measles. When they finally analyzed all the data in the children that were reported to have died from measles, they found that poor nutrition was responsible for 44.8% of the deaths, not the measles per se. And that’s leaving aside the problems with stress, medications, inadequate sleep, and the immune suppression that vaccines cause.
So, one of the best things a parent can do these days to prevent their child from being that very rare one in a thousand that dies from measles is to make sure they have a regular sleep schedule, limit stress and the use of medications, and for God’s sake feed them properly. That means uncontaminated, hormone-free, chemical-free whole fresh foods, such as meats, fish, poultry, dairy, vegetables, and whole fruit. No GMO foods. No processed foods. No fast foods. No sugar drinks. Just the good old stuff that grandma used to make.
Yours for better health,
Frank Shallenberger, MD
REF: Caulfield, L.E., M. de Onis, et al. “Undernutrition as an underlying cause of child deaths associated with diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and measles.” Am J Clin Nutr., 2004 July; 80(1):193-8.