No, the measles vaccine is not worse than measles (column)

We can not talk about the measles in Michigan without discussing the anti-vaxx movement.

And we can not discuss the anti-vaxx movement without polling the specious premise that the measles vaccine is, on the whole, more dangerous than measles itself.

At this point, 39 people have been diagnosed with measles in Michigan, the highest number since 1991.

Three dozen boxes may not seem like a lot for a disease so much that public-health officials assume anybody born before 1957 has already had it.

For most Americans of that generation, measles has been miserable experience – high fever, red eyes, and certainly not-life-threatening infections.

But there was a reason for measles vaccination in 1963, especially among doctors. Measles can have serious complications, including pneumonia, encephalitis and hearing loss.

People can die. Before the vaccine widespread, measles killed an estimated 2.6 million people a year worldwide. Most of the victims were children.

Even today, about 100,000 people die annually from measles. That's not just in the Third World. Measles deaths have occurred in Israel, Italy, France. German health officials say about a fourth of their patients report end up in the hospital.

These are preventable illnesses, preventable deaths. The vaccine works. Measles could go the way of smallpox – total eradication – if enough people get immunized.

Enter the anti-vaxx movement, which views the vaccine as its own health hazard.

Hundreds of Michigan schools and child-care programs are vulnerable to measles outbreaks of the unvaccinated children, according to public health data.

Almost 400 public and private K-12 schools and 295 day-care programs have been submitted to 2017, state records show. More than 1,000 K-12 schools and 800 day cares have vaccine rates of more than 5%, which is about a quarter of all K-12 schools and 22 percent of day cares. Experts say you need a vaccination rate of 95% to keep measles out.

2017 vaccination rates for Michigan public and private schools

This online database shows the 2017 vaccination waiver rates by school building. The numbers here are for kindergartners, seventh-graders and transfer students. The caveat: The number of children asked to provide records is usually a relatively small percentage of the population.

2017 vaccination rates for Michigan child-care programs

This database shows 2017 vaccination rates for more than 3,700 child-care programs in Michigan. The law requires those facilities to obtain immunization records or a new enrollment in their program.

Quality of sources

When I first started reporting on vaccines and the anti-vaxx movement in 2014, I started with researching both sides of the issue.

Quickly, I found myself down the rabbit hole of endless arguments and counter-arguments.

To cut to the chase, I changed my focus from quantity of information to quality of sources.

Who are the top experts on each side? What do the peer-reviewed published studies say? Where do medical and scientific organizations stand?

With that, the fog lifted.

What I found: The global medical and scientific community is firmly, overwhelmingly, on the side of vaccinations. In the past five years, I have yet to come across a single, major mainstream medical organization anywhere in the world that endorses the anti-vaxx movement.

Not one.

Anti-vaxxers will tell you that it's because of Big Pharma.

But that does not explain the global support of vaccinations – in countries where Big Pharma has no influence, in socialized systems where the profit motive is a non-factor.

The consensus around vaccinations is particularly important when you consider it, the many, many ongoing debates in the medical community. The value of heart stents, opioids, back surgery, to name a few. The timing and frequency of mammograms and PSA testing. Last week, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, no longer recommended to daily aspirin to reduce the risk of heart attacks.

And these are just the disagreements within the United States. Globally, there are even more clashes about best practices.

Yet the importance of vaccinations medical units around the world, experts from different nations with different medical perspectives and traditions.

This map that shows 2017 childhood immunization waiver rates for a county level, combining the numbers for K-12 school and child-care programs. You can click on a county to see the underlying data

To be sure, like any medical intervention, vaccines are neither foolproof nor risk free. There are cases of serious adverse reactions to vaccines. Some people who are fully vaccinated can still get the disease.

Moreover, there is no question of vaccine effectiveness and safety are important issues worthy of more research and study. A legitimate debate can be had which vaccines should be mandatory and which has a cost-benefit analysis.

But after decades of widespread immunization, there is overwhelming evidence of the benefits of vaccines far outweigh the downsides.

Let's look specifically at measles.

In the early 1960s, the U.S. was averaging 400,000 to 500,000 reported measles cases a year. By 1968, the number less than 25,000. Today, thanks to the vaccination, has been eliminated in America.

Meanwhile, most American children have gotten the MMR vaccine to prevent measles, mumps and rubella, and studies show serious adverse reactions are very, very rare. How rare? From 2006 to 2017, more than 101 million doses of the MMR vaccine were administered in the United States. During that time, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program paid settlements on 120 claims for serious injuries involving the MMR – one settlement for every 850,000 doses.

To put the latter statistic in context: About one in 1,000 measles patients, and that does not include those who experience such complications. It also does not include the deaths and complications related to mumps and rubella.

And realize without a vaccine, almost everyone would catch measles at some point; it's an airborne virus and one of the most contagious diseases on the planet.

It's no exaggeration to say just the measles share of the MMR vaccine has saved tens of millions of lives globally – and thousands in the US – over the past 40 or so years. It's very, very hard to argue that risks linked to the MMR outweigh that.

There's a huge irony at work here. Unvaccinated Americans do not think about measles because they live under the protective power of herd immunity. To get measles, you have to be exposed to the virus. When you live in a community where the vast majority have been vaccinated, chances of exposure drop significantly.

But the more anti-vaxxers convince others not to vaccinate, the more herd immunity breaks down and measles resurges. We're seeing that in Europe, Israel and Japan. In the United States. In Michigan.

What's happening in Michigan is not cause for panic. But it is cause for concern. We really do not want to return to the days when measles ran rampant.

What we can do is push harder for global vaccination. The faster it happens, the faster measles will be abolished and concerns about the disease – and the MMR – will become moot.

Julie Mack is a reporter for MLive's Public Impact team. She is a 1981 graduate of Michigan State University, a journalist for four decades and has been based in Kalamazoo since 1990.