Conventional medicine claims that measles is one of its most important success stories. Conventional medical literature routinely refers to measles as 'a killer disease' that has been conquered, eradicated by the programmes of mass vaccination, developed for children from the 1960's onwards. As a result of this medical success measles is no longer a killer disease - thanks to the MMR vaccines.
This is the propaganda of conventional medicine - in a nutshell. However, even a cursory look at the history of measles, using official statistics, will quickly dispel this myth.
Epidemics of the 19th Century
Measles has been around for millennia. This has been described by the Los Angeles Times in 2015. It states that measles was first identified by physicians in Asia and North Africa during the 3rd to 10th centuries AD; that a Chinese alchemist differentiate measles from smallpox in 340AD; and it lists some of the early known epidemics, notably in 1492 when Christopher Columbus, and early European explorers, introduced it to native Americans. They had no resistance to the virus, and to many of the other infectious diseases that were introduced. Alongside these other diseases, measles had a devastating effect.
"By some estimates, the native American population plunged by as much as 95% over the next 150 years due to disease"
Yet it is perhaps during the 19th century that measles epidemic attracted most attention throughout the world. In Britain the incidence of measles probably rose as a result of the Agrarian Revolution, which removed people from their village communities, and the Industrial Revolution, which deposited them in the new industrial towns.
So the measles epidemics of the 19th Century developed amongst populations that lived in poverty, in squalid overcrowded housing, poor working conditions, with extremely poor nutrition, amidst disease-promoting insanitary circumstances. Measles epidemics occurred regularly, on average about every five years or so during the first half of the century.
During all this time conventional medicine had no effective treatment for measles. Some comparisons have been made comparing Homeopathic and Conventional Medical Treatment for measles and other disease epidemics during this time, and without exception, it was homeopathy that was more successful in keeping patients alive.
Public Health Measures
As the 19th century progressed the importance of public health policy was gradually realised. These policies led to improved housing, improved sanitation, improved water supply, improved nutrition. Living standards improved, greater affluence was generated, and poverty was reduced.
Official evidence shows, quite clearly, that these measures brought about the decline in both incidence of measles, and mortality rates.
1900 to 1968 - the decline in measles continues
The decline in measles continued rapidly into the 20th century, during which time (although not wanting to repeat myself too much) conventional medicine had no treatment for measles, or any of the other infectious diseases - and of course no vaccine.
This graph demonstrates that between 1900 and 1968 (when the first vaccination programme was introduced) the decline in the incidence of measles did not deviate from its downward trend. It shows clearly that the vaccine made no difference at all.
Moreover, as this graph demonstrates, the deaths caused by measles had already declined by 99.4% between 1900 and 1968 - so mortality rates too was a trend that had started long before the introduction of the vaccine.
The Successful Use of Statistics as Propaganda
The introduction of measles vaccines did not alter either the incidence, or the deaths caused by the disease. Each graph continued to decline in much the same way that it had been doing for 100 years!
Perhaps it is time we recognised that statistics can be used to demonstrate or prove anything; and that the conventional medical establishment has been second to none in its brilliant promotional use of statistics.
What they have achieved is truly remarkable. The pharmaceutical industry has taken credit for 'conquering' measles when the credit is due (almost entirely) to public health measures and increased affluence. Conventional medicine takes a year in the 19th century, when the incidence of, and death rates from measles are at their highest, compares it to the current situation, and then seeks to convince us that the improvement was caused entirely by vaccines. It represents a significant victory of fiction over fact!
The fact is that measles has not been a major 'killer disease for a very long time; that the MMR vaccines have not protected us from it; and (of course) the conventional medical establishment still has no treatment for measles.
Would you like to read more information about the propaganda myth surrounding the eradication of measles as a 'killer' disease? If so please read this brilliant and insightful book. It provides a comprehensive historical and statistical account of the decline of the disease in the years prior to the introduction of the vaccine.
Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History: Suzanne Humphries & Roman Bystrianyk. ISBN 1480216895.
This will be the first of a series of blogs about "the myths of conventional medical success". Others have subsequently appeared, and can be found on these links.
Smallpoxhttps://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-myths-of-conventional-medical.html
Polio
https://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-myths-of-conventional-medical.html
