Tag: measles encephalitis

Does Having Measles Protect You from Cancer?

Anti-vaccine folks often try to tout the benefits of natural immunity.

So that's why Big Pharma wants you to get measles! So you will get cancer.
So that’s why Big Pharma wants you to get measles! So you will get cancer.

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

Meningitis Vaccines

Meningitis is classically defined as an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord.

Infections that can cause meningitis include:

  • viruses – also called aseptic meningitis, it can be caused by enteroviruses, measles, mumps, and herpes, etc.
  • bacteria – Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, Listeria monocytogenes, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Group B strep
  • a fungus – Cryptococcus, Histoplasma
  • parasites – uncommon
  • amebas – Naegleria fowleri

There are even non-infectious causes of meningitis, including the side-effects of medications and certain systemic illnesses.

Meningitis Vaccines

Teens and young adults need two different kinds of meningococcal vaccines to get full protection.
Teens and young adults need two different kinds of meningococcal vaccines to get full protection.

Fortunately, many of these diseases that cause meningitis are vaccine-preventable.

You don’t often think about them in this way, but all of the following vaccines are available to prevent meningitis, including:

  • Hib – the Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria was a common cause of meningitis in the pre-vaccine era, in addition to causing epiglottitis and pneumonia
  • Prevnar – you mean it’s not just an ear infection vaccine?
  • MMR – both measles and mumps can cause meningitis
  • Menactra and Menveo – serogroup A, C, W, Y meningococcal vaccines
  • Bexsero and Trumenba – serogroup B meningococcal vaccines

But just because your child has been vaccinated doesn’t mean that you are in the clear if they are exposed to someone with meningitis. They might still need preventative antibiotics if they are exposed to someone with Hib or meningococcal meningitis.

Still, getting fully vaccinated on time is the best way to prevent many of these types of meningitis and other life-threatening diseases.

What to Know About Meningitis Vaccines

Learn which vaccines are available to provide protection against bacterial and viral meningitis.

More on Meningitis Vaccines

Vaccines and Encephalitis

It is thought that vaccines can, very rarely, cause encephalitis.

“Encephalitis: Irritation and swelling (inflammation) of the brain, most often due to infections.”

IOM Report on Adverse Effects of Vaccines

Encephalitis is actually a table injury in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program if it occurs:

  • within 72 hours of getting a pertussis containing vaccines
  • within 5 to 15 days of getting an MMR vaccine

And since it is a table injury, then unless another cause is found, “it is presumed that the vaccine was the cause of the injury.”

Most causes of encephalitis are natural infections, including some that are vaccine-preventable. In fact, about 1 in 1,000 people who get measles can develop measles encephalitis.

So the fact that vaccines can, very rarely, cause encephalitis, shouldn’t lead anyone to think that delaying or skipping a vaccine is a good idea.

Autism and Encephalitis

Of course, it isn’t that simple.

The problem?

The misnamed Immunity Education site tries to scare parents into thinking that crying, even excessively, after a vaccine means a child has encephalitis.
The misnamed Immunity Education site tries to scare parents into thinking that crying, even excessively, after a vaccine means that a child has encephalitis.

Anti-vaccine folks claim that an awful lot of things are encephalitis, from crying excessively after getting a vaccine to autism.

Although the Vaccine Information Statement for the DTaP vaccine (it was more common after the older DTP vaccine) does state that children may uncommonly have “non-stop crying, for 3 hours or more” it is not because they have brain inflammation, and the reaction “although unnerving, is otherwise benign.” It is not even a contraindication to getting another dose of DTaP or a later dose of Tdap.

What causes this non-stop crying? It is thought to be a painful local reaction. Fortunately, it does not happen as often with the newer DTaP vaccines.

And autism is not encephalitis.

“That measles infections can cause neurologic side effects on rare occasions is known, but the complication rate for vaccinations is low. After infectious measles encephalitis, risk of an autistic regression has occurred in 1/1000 to 1/10,000 cases. If the trend toward delaying vaccination continues because parents remain misinformed about the MMR, the number of children with neurologic complications of measles or rubella will increase. ”

Chez et al on Immunizations, Immunology, and Autism

Can encephalitis lead a child to have symptoms of autism?

Sometimes.

In addition to natural measles infections, there have been reports of children developing autism after HSV encephalitis, varicella encephalitis, congenital rubella syndrome, and congenital syphilis.

But the great majority of kids with autism do not first have encephalitis. They do not have ongoing brain inflammation.

Saying that encephalitis can cause autism is not the same thing as saying that autism is encephalitis.

Do Vaccines Cause Encephalitis?

And even though encephalitis has long been a table injury for a few vaccines, the 2012 IOM report, “Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality,” found inadequate evidence to be able to conclude that encephalitis was caused by vaccines.

“Follow-up investigations in that cohort and others, however, found no evidence of a real increased incidence of encephalitis following DTwP. In addition, the most recent IOM report concludes that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between diphtheria toxoid-, tetanus toxoid-, or acellular pertussis-containing vaccine and encephalitis or encephalopathy.”

Vaccinophobia and Vaccine Controversies of the 21st Century

That’s not surprising, because follow-up of children studied in the 1980s, from which the original claims about DTP and encephalitis were made, found no evidence of an increased risk of encephalitis.

What about the MMR vaccine?

Again, the IOM report found inadequate evidence, but the problem has always been that “acute encephalitis post-MMR is so rare that it has been impossible to distinguish from the background encephalitis rate of 1 in one million in immune competent hosts.”

Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis

Doesn’t the discovery of anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate (anti-NMDA) receptor encephalitis prove that vaccines cause autism?

“Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is a disease occurring when antibodies produced by the body’s own immune system attack NMDA receptors in the brain.”

The Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis Foundation

Often associated with tumors, isolated case reports do correlate anti-NMDAR encephalitis with vaccines. There are so few cases of anti-NMDAR encephalitis though, it is hard to know what they mean, as are the reports of autism developing after anti-NMDAR encephalitis.

What to Know About Vaccines and Encephalitis

Vaccines still don’t cause autism and the latest safety studies report that vaccines probably don’t cause encephalitis, although a few are still listed as a table injury.

More About Vaccines and Encephalitis

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