Measles Makes* a Chilling Comeback

Also, hippos make lousy house pets.

*As wrong as that looks and feels, measles is a singular noun that requires a singular verb

At lunch with friends this weekend, we got into the topic of folk etymology (I know! We’re so fun!) and some of the myths around word origins. Our friend Mike had heard that the word shit is actually an acronym from old maritime days that stood for “Ship High In Transit.” This legend has it that when manure was transported on ships and stored in the lower holds, it would get wet, ferment, and release methane gas, creating a fire hazard. To prevent this, crates of manure were supposedly labeled "Ship High in Transit" so they would be stored above deck for ventilation. (In actuality, the word shit comes from the Old English word scite meaning dung, which I agree is a lot less romantic.)

In return, I shared the mistaken fable that the word posh stands for “Port Out, Starboard Home” and originated in the 1800s when wealthy British passengers traveled to and from India. The story goes that the well-to-do would book the pricier, more comfortable cabins on the port side when sailing out and the starboard side when returning home because they stayed cool in the shade—supposedly leading to their baggage being labeled POSH. Sadly, there is no historical evidence this ever happened and the internet says the word is likely little more than a made-up bit of slang.

In case you were curious, the term "gaslight" originates from the 1938 British play Gas Light (and its subsequent film adaptations). In the story, a husband psychologically tortures his anxious wife by hiding her belongings and insisting she’s lost them, dimming the gas lights and denying that anything has changed, and routinely dismissing her concerns as hysteria. His goal is to make her think she’s going insane so he can have her committed and steal her family fortune. Over time, "gaslighting" came to mean mentally manipulating someone into questioning their own perceptions, memories, or sanity—a tactic often associated with emotional abuse, politics, and propaganda.

We learned a lot about gaslighting during the pandemic.

Our abusive collective husband is at it again, this time trying to convince us that measles are going to be the death of us all—oh, and it’s all those selfish anti-vaxxers’ fault.

If you’re of a certain age, you likely remember the Brady Bunch episode where the whole brood comes down with the dreaded polka dot plague (measles is highly contagious, a fact that the panic-peddlers love to trot out). As the kids play board games in bed, Greg is downright giddy. “Boy, this is the life, isn’t it?” he asks, all Cheshire cat smiles. “Yeah, if you have to get sick, you sure can’t beat the measles!” Marcia giggles.

This is where the gaslighting gets real. Back in 2019, when measles was making headlines again, the media hunted down Maureen McCormick, the actress who played Marcia Brady, for her hot take. “I think it’s really wrong when people use people’s images today to promote whatever they want to promote,” McCormick is quoted as saying before allegedly adding that of course she vaccinated her own daughter. I would have said the exact same things at the time.

Case closed, then.

According to the CDC’s own data, prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, there were 3 to 4 million infections per year and an estimated 400-500 related deaths (roughly 0.013%), most of whom were severely malnourished or had other health conditions.

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny did a deep dive into the latest hype, explaining that for the vast majority of people, measles is a rash, fever, cough, some diarrhea, maybe a little conjunctivitis, and a bit of skin peeling, particularly on the hands. “The measles vaccine cut down on the incidence rate of measles because it stopped transmission,” Tenpenny admits, “but it really didn’t do anything to change the death rate, which was always very low.” Further, the WHO has been publishing since 2005 that high-dose vitamin A for two days can and should be used to treat measles—but not shockingly, we don’t hear a whisper about that. Nope, it’s jab-jab-nothing-but-jab with a chemical cocktail that comes with a slew of horrific side effects to prevent a mostly mild illness.

Sound familiar?

In his meticulously referenced book Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes: “Although vaccination protected against vaccine-preventable infectious diseases such as pertussis and measles, vaccinated children had a far greater incidence of behavioral issues, seizures, loss of consciousness, antibiotic use, and hospital visits, among others.” The book goes on to detail the dramatically increased rates of autism, Chron’s disease, ulcerative colitis, allergies, and—yes—death (particularly when combined with the DTP vaccine) in children who received measles vaccines compared to those who didn’t.

Source: @kevinnbass on X

But the media is never going to let a child’s tragic death go to waste—not when they can use it to ramp up the fear-mongering and hopefully drive folks to vaccine clinics in droves.

Of course, no outlet supposedly-covering the story has released any additional information about the child; they simply allude to the fact that he or she “had been hospitalized” and “tested positive for measles.”

Anyone who hasn’t been completely brainwashed: “Was the child hospitalized after a car accident? Was he or she dangerously malnourished or vitamin A-deficient or diabetic or immunocompromised? Did the hospital inoculate him or her with a live virus (a known no-no during an outbreak, but modern medicine) while he or she was there, effectively causing the condition—or at least, the positive test result?”

The media: “Yeah, we don’t know. We didn’t ask. Listen, a child has died. For God’s sake, show some fear respect.”

♫ “I make my livin' off the evenin' news,
just give me somethin', somethin' I can use.
People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry.
We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at five.
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.
It's interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry.” ♫

Back when I was dutifully lining up for whatever poke they promised would protect me or my family, I wholeheartedly believed we had a moral duty to protect one another. “Well, I’m not at risk of measles, so I’m not going to get it,” was as selfish as you could possibly be, because your getting it could save my asthmatic child’s or epileptic granny’s life. But that belief system was born of a lie: the promise that vaccines weren’t just effective but safe. I wasn’t being asked to choose between my healthy young daughter and your aging parent (and #sorrynotsorry, but you already know who I’m choosing).

Just this morning, CBS rushed to report that “Vaccine critic RFK Jr. backs measles vaccine amid deadly Texas outbreak.” While that sounds like a shocking and abrupt about-face, Kennedy simply reiterated the very same thing(s) he’s been saying all along:

“[On] Sunday, Kennedy said he was ‘deeply concerned about the recent measles outbreak,’ in an opinion piece published by Fox News. ‘Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons,’ he wrote.

However, he said, ‘The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,’ and he urged all parents to ‘consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine.’

Kennedy said health workers, officials and communities were responsible for ‘ensuring that accurate information about vaccine safety and efficacy is disseminated” and making ‘vaccines readily accessible for all those who want them’.”

At the end of the day, the choice to vaccinate comes down to cost-benefit analysis. It’s sort of like owning a pet hippo. Sure, they’re insanely territorial, charge at people just for existing, and could bite you in half with more than 2,000 pounds of force—but hey, you get to say you own a pet hippo. Again, we’re talking about injecting a foreign substance with countless known side effects into an otherwise healthy person (*if you or a loved one is at-risk, feel free to belly up to the vaccine bar!) in the hopes of preventing a week of annoying symptoms. Why aren’t they running massive vitamin A campaigns or offering tips for preventing spread? Because if they want me to put some foreign poison in my body for a stranger’s sake, they damned well be able to prove it’s not going to hurt or kill me.

Measles has never completely gone away, and we’ve had spikes in the “average” numbers every few years. So why the crazy hysteria around it now? Could it be because that anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. is now the head of HHS, a reality that dangerously threatens their carefully constructed house of vaccine lies? Could it be because the medical industrial complex is desperate to reinforce their “vaccines are safe and effective and anyone questioning that is a lunatic” messaging? Could it be that U.S. flu season has likely reached its peak—according to the CDC—so they need a scary new carrot to dangle in front of nervous germaphobes?

As my friend Doc Malik pointed out in his recent Substack on the subject, “Public health officials, politicians, and the media are grossly exaggerating the severity of measles to justify injecting billions of people with a pharmaceutical product. It’s almost too convenient that measles is being rebranded as a serious threat, a convenient way to keep the public fearful and compliant. Because if people stop seeing measles as a major problem, they might start asking uncomfortable questions: ‘If there’s no real crisis… why do we need the solution?’” (Do check out that ‘stack if you have time; Doc has some great graphics and stats to back up his hypothesis.)

As always, I am open to dissenting opinions. Let me know what you think about March Measles Madness in the comments.

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