My family’s approach has worked 100% of the time for us.

If you enjoy being a fear monger and spreading unconfirmed medical outbreaks, knock yourself out. I will stick to the CDC because THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO.

Evidence pleases that the effectiveness for influenza is 90%( for what year/s?) for the entire population given that only 25 percent of the population under 65 were vaccinated (given percentages from CDC):

<18 25%
18-45 19%
45-64 34%

Anecdotal:

The last time anyone in our family received the flu shot it worked 0% for all individuals under 65. It was also the last time anyone caught the flu as well.

If you were to actually listen to your doctor for the recommendation of what to do to remain in good health and avoid the flu, guess what, THEY WORK!

Just roll up your sleeve, hope for the best, and tell your doctor to stick his opinion somewhere.

Every person, except me, in my home is routinely exposed to populations under 18 and over 65 and we are all doing great this millennium. Working in a cube farm makes it easy to limit exposure to less then healthy individuals in the workplace. How many times has someone in your household caught the vaccine preventable bug?

Where is the study for the effectiveness of not getting the flu vaccines if you are UNDER age 65?

This is your troll behavior. The flu vaccine works at over 90% effectiveness if you are UNDER age 65. You selectively quoted the part that was only about those folks over 65.

“No one in my house has had a need for it since 1999 because there are more effective ways then the vaccine. Same approach works for measels as well.”

Is this your close yourself in the house and avoid all human contact method? You make all these statements, yet you do not back them up.

You also selectively post information. There is another outbreak of measles starting in my state. So far no one knows where she got it. It may not take long for measles to become endemic in the USA like it is now in the UK.

Still waiting for you to post some real science. Though all I can expect from you are troll comments about influenza, and more “La la la la, I can’t hear you” when it comes to actual evidence and science goes counter to your beliefs.

“89% were imported from or associated with importations from other countries”. The problem isn’t here, move along.

Why get something that doesn’t work. No one in my house has had a need for it since 1999 because there are more effective ways then the vaccine. Same approach works for measels as well.

Also, the influenza vaccine coverage numbers does not in anyway explain what the risks are from the MMR vaccine are compared to measles, mumps and rubella. A question you have yet to answer.

What were the statistics for influenza 50 years ago? According to this timeline:
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/avianflu/timeline.html … in 1957 “Asian flu pandemic kills 100,000 people, due to the H2N2 influenza virus.”

and in 1968 “Hong Kong flu pandemic kills 700,000 people, due to the H3N2 virus.”

Those are worldwide numbers, at that time measles was still killing millions per year. Just a decade ago measles killed over a million people per year, that has been reduced to a fraction of that due to this:
http://www.measlesinitiative.org/index3.asp … “Since 2001, the Measles Initiative has supported the vaccination of more than 500 million children in over 50 countries.
During this time, we’ve helped reduce measles deaths by 68% worldwide and 91% in Africa.”

Fifty years measles killed several million children per year, while influenza was just a blip even during a pandemic. Since measles is a human only disease, there is a chance to make it disappear from this planet forever, just like what happened to smallpox (unlike influenza).

But I am glad you are reminding me to get our flu shots as soon as possible. I assume you are working to reduce the impact of influenza in your family by getting everyone vaccinated this season.

What have I said about you changing the subject? The post is about measles, yet someone decides to drag in influenza. Without even bothering the answer my question!

How on earth is the influenza vaccine supposed to protect against measles!!! Especially while it has to be reformulated each year, and the MMR does not. Really, is there some weird issue you have that one vaccine is supposed to protect against another disease? Do you need to take some basic biology classes?

The effectiveness of the influenza vaccine has nothing to do with the MMR vaccine, which has a 90% to 98% effectiveness. From the CDC Pink Book chapter on measles, page 10: “Measles vaccine produces an inapparent or mild, noncommunicable infection. Measles antibodies develop in approximately 95% of children vaccinated at 12 months of age and 98% of children vaccinated at 15 months of age.”… a quicky search finds the study at:
J Infect Dis. 2004 May 1;189 Suppl 1:S116-22.
Comparison of vaccination with measles-mumps-rubella vaccine at 9, 12, and 15 months of age.

(should I also mention you are cherry picking your data… according to the CDC Pink Book Chapter on Influenza, the 40% effectiveness is only on those people age 65 and older: “For practical purposes, immunity following inactivated
influenza vaccination is less than 1 year because of waning of vaccine-induced antibody and antigenic drift of circulating influenza viruses. Influenza vaccine efficacy varies by the similarity of the vaccine strain(s) to the circulating strain and the age and health status of the recipient. Vaccines are effective in protecting up to 90% of healthy vaccinees younger than 65 years of age from illness when the vaccine strain is similar to the circulating strain. However, the vaccine is only 30%–40% effective in preventing illness among persons 65 years of age and older.”)

Now about the effect of measles, when it last hit the USA the death rate was about 1 in 500:
J Infect Dis. 2004 May 1;189 Suppl 1:S69-77.
Acute measles mortality in the United States, 1987-2002.

Also, measles can cause permanent neurological damage due to encephalitis, see:
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006 Mar;160(3):302-9.
Impact of specific medical interventions on reducing the prevalence of mental retardation.

Some other review papers (there were too many case reports, which are essentially anecdotes):
Postgrad Med J. 2002 Feb;78(916):63-70.
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.
J Neurovirol. 2001 Oct;7(5):391-9.
Measles virus interactions with cellular receptors: consequences for viral pathogenesis.
… and on and on… though in the past decade the papers are mostly on subacute sclerosing panencephalitis …

To show what the difference the MMR vaccine has done in cases, check out the numbers 50 years apart (hand transcribed from the CDC Pink Book Appendix G):
Year____Cases____Deaths
1950___319124____468
1951___530118____683
1952___683077____618
1953___449146____462
1954___682720____518
1955___555156____345
1956___611936____530
Total__3831277___3624
Recent years:
Year____Cases____Deaths
2000_______86______ 1
2001______116______ 1
2002_______44______ 0
2003_______56______ 1
2004_______37______ Not available
2005_______66______ Not available
2006_______55______ Not available
Total______460______3 or more

The question I want answered is what scientific evidence is there that shows that the MMR vaccine is worse than measles, mumps or rubella?

(please do not bring up other diseases or vaccines, keep on topic with only measles, mumps and rubella)

According to scientific studies, which is worse, measles or influenza? They both have vaccines. The both are highly contagious. They both cause hospitalizations and death. They both cause long term health complications. One of the vaccines was only 40% effective last year, but that is ok because only 30% of the population used it, and yet there is no national obsession with plastering that information across news articles by the mindless media. Give me some real science and not some mindless anecdotal stories. Let’s see what real science has to say.