Anti-vaccine folks often try to tout the benefits of natural immunity.
That measles reduces your risk of cancer is probably one that you haven’t heard.
Neither are you likely to have heard of the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma wants you to get vaccinated and protected so that you don’t get measles, just so you are at increased risk of cancer later.
Does Having Measles Protect You from Cancer?
The idea of a viral infection protecting you from cancer doesn’t make much sense, after all, many viral infections actually cause cancer.
That’s why we have vaccines to protect us against hepatitis B and HPV infections! So much for the idea that Big Pharma wants you to get cancer. If they did, then why did they develop vaccines that prevent cancer?
But Brandy Vaughn has evidence for her claim, doesn’t she?
Kind of. She has a study, “Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched control,” that was published 20 years ago in the journal Medical Hypothesis. A study that consisted of a questionnaire that was sent to cancer patients who were seen by anthroposophic general practitioners in Switzerland.
Anthroposophic general practitioners? Think Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf Schools.
Understand the connection with vaccines now?
That’s right, a “study” done by alternative health providers who are against vaccines found a benefit to getting febrile infectious childhood diseases, many of which are vaccine preventable.
What Are the Benefits and Risks of Measles?
Not surprisingly, few other people talk about any benefits to having a natural measles infection.
Unfortunately, we also don’t hear enough about the complications of these infections either, mostly because they are rather uncommon these days since most folks are vaccinated and protected.
Not uncommon enough though, as we still do have outbreaks.
| Measles Benefits | Measles Risks |
|---|---|
| natural immunity | death |
| can miss 7-10 days of school or work | encephalitis |
| SSPE | |
| seizures | |
| pneumonia | |
| 7 to 10 days of high fever and irritability | |
| can trigger an outbreak | |
| a few years of immune amnesia |
Immune amnesia?
That’s a risk that you might be unfamiliar with, but it is the increasing popular theory that a natural measles infection resets your immune system to that of a newborn, so that you are once again susceptible to many infectious diseases. That’s likely why mortality rates from other diseases besides measles goes down when folks start to get vaccinated against measles.
Measles and Cancer Risks
What about the association of measles and cancer?
Unlike the idea that a natural measles infection might be protective against cancer, there are more than a few studies that actually associate measles with a risk of developing cancer, including:
- lung cancer
- Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- endometrial cancer
- breast cancer
Are these associations real?
Probably not, after all, why don’t rates of these cancers go way down after measles gets under control or eliminated?
Still, most of us know that measles isn’t a mild disease and don’t need any extra benefits to getting vaccinated and protected.
We know what life was like when measles was a common childhood disease and see what is happening in parts of the world where measles is still much more common than it is in the United States.
And we understand the most dangerous association between measles and cancer that affects the most people – when unvaccinated people get measles and expose children and adults on chemotherapy who are immunosuppressed and can’t be vaccinated.
More on Measles and Cancer
- Measles and Cancer: A Wake-Up Call
- When It’s Not a Choice: Measles and Leukemia
- Study – Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched controls.
- Study – Long-term measles-induced immunomodulation increases overall childhood infectious disease mortality
- Scientists Crack A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine
- Study – Measles Virus: Association with Cancer
- Study – Measles virus: evidence for association with lung cancer.
- Study – Measles virus: evidence of an association with Hodgkin’s disease
- Study – Evidence of measles virus antigens and RNA in endometrial cancer.
- Study – Measles virus antigens in breast cancer.
- Does the Measles Virus Contribute to Carcinogenesis? – A Review
- Woman’s cancer killed by measles virus in unprecedented trial
- Measles Vaccine = Cancer Cure?
Last Updated on August 18, 2018