Melanie’s Marvelous Measles: Anti-Vaccine Book Tells Truth About Measles

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An anti-vaccination picture book aimed at children has received  a number of complaints by pro-vaccine campaigners after the book talks plainly and honestly about the non existent danger with contracting measles. 

Stephanie Messenger’s “Melanie’s Marvelous Measles” explores the benefits of children having measles and gives tips for natural cures such as eating fruits and vegetables. This has left many pro-vaccine groups furious that the book is “downplaying” the “dangers” of measles. The books author, however, claims measles is a normal and routine childhood illness which can actually have its benefits.

Yahoo News reports:

In the book, Melanie contracts measles despite being vaccinated; whereas, her unvaccinated friend Tina is not infected with the virus even though they happily hug each other and play together.

This scenario would be unlikely. The virus is so contagious that 90 percent of people who are not vaccinated will be infected if exposed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Jennifer Lighter Fisher, an infectious disease specialist at New York University Langone Medical Center’s Department of Pediatrics, says that in theory, the disease could be eradicated from the planet because humans are the only species affected by it.

“Measles really is a devastating illness, and it’s completely preventable. The vaccine is very efficacious,” she said in an interview with Yahoo News.

Clearly, Messenger is highly skeptical of the overwhelming scientific consensus on this issue.

“Often today, we are being bombarded with messages from vested interests to fear all diseases in order for someone to sell some potion or vaccine,” Messenger writes in a book description, “when, in fact, history shows that in industrialized countries, these diseases are quite benign and, according to natural health sources, beneficial to the body.”

Messenger, of Brisbane, Queensland, said she wanted to show children, ages 4 to 10, that vaccinations are ineffective and that measles can supposedly be fun.

Not surprisingly, reviews of the book on Amazon.com have been mostly negative.

“Dangerous, misleading and borderline child abuse,” one customer wrote. “There are very few medical procedures as well understood and as safe as vaccinations.”

Another commented, “Isn’t Melanie lucky that she didn’t get pneumonia from her measles like 1 in 15 children (7%) do? I had measles when I was a toddler in the 1950s before there was a measles vaccine available. I was in [a] hospital in an oxygen tent for over a week with bilateral pneumonia when I had measles. That is a much more frightening experience for a toddler than an injection.”

“I am going to be certain to get a copy of this book for my aunt,” another wrote. “Measles was so marvelous to her that she lost her hearing due to complications from it and has been deaf since childhood.”

One user facetiously gave the book five stars and suggested, “Check out these other fine titles from the same author” if you enjoyed the book. Then he ran off a slew of parody titles, including Annette’s Astonishing Aneurysm, Carol’s Colorful Chlamydia, Dave’s Darling Deformity, Larry’s Lovely Lymphoma, Scott’s Scrumptious Scabies, Wendy’s Wonderful War Wound, and many more.

Its title is an apparent parody of Roald Dahl’s “George’s Marvelous Medicine,” likely mocking his 1988 plea to other parents to vaccinate their children against measles 26 years after losing his eldest daughter, Olivia, to the disease.

“I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days, a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered,” he wrote. “Today, a good and safe vaccine is available to every family, and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.”

The contagious disease used to be common in the United States but had been declared officially eradicated from the country by 2000.

Scientists attribute the success in whipping out this disease to higher rates of vaccination.

However, the anti-vaccination movement, which is fueled by debunked research that erroneously linked vaccines with autism, led to rising numbers in recent years.

The CDC says there are at least 102 confirmed measles cases in 2015. Of those, 94 are related to an outbreak at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Fisher says that before the vaccine, over 95 percent of the world population got measles, and 2.6 million died from the disease globally. Thanks to vaccinations, she said, a significantly reduced number — 146,000 people — died of measles globally in 2013.

1 Comment

  1. You made a few errors in your article and you really need to correct them. I’ll help.
    1) in 2015 there were 194 cases of measles. Of those , 73 were found to be the strain contained in the MMR vaccine.
    Get that? 38% of the Measles cases in 2015 were caused by the vaccine! That matters and should have been included in your ‘article’ .
    2) There is no anti vaccination movement. There is a movement that wants the facts about the ingredients, efficacy, and risks related to vaccines. They also want a study that compares vaccinated against unvaccinated subjects and compares the health conditions of both groups. That has never been done. For you to denigrade these people, many of whom have children who have been catastrophically injured or killed by vaccines, is not only ignorant and incompetent, but it is also egregious.
    3) Nobody is fueled by a debunked study, you just flat out lied there and again it reveals the cimplete absence of integrity, credibility, and honesty on the part of the author.
    4) The ‘debunked study’ that you refer to did not link autism to vaccines and the study was absolutely never debunked. In fact the study has been replicated with the same results 25 times since the original was published.
    5) The worst falsehood in this rag quality hack piece is the slanderous profile that you try to create of the people who are fighting for truth and safety for vaccines
    If you are not a scoundrel you certainly act like one. You try to make readers think that people who’s children have been maimed or killed by vaccines

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