Measles and Contagion

See also: The Untold Story of Measles

The Infectious Myth Busted: Is Measles Contagious?

Measles is always a hot topic of discussion that continues to divide people. The disease gained notoriety as a killer of children, and anytime children are involved, tempers flare. The pharmaceutical industry has done a remarkable job of convincing the majority that the symptoms known as measles are a deadly disease requiring vaccination in order to protect the children and all those around them, especially the “immunocompromised.” A massive vaccination campaign that began in 1963 created the perception that the vaccine was responsible for a drop in childhood deaths from the disease, even though the statistics show that it had no such effect as the death rate had plummeted long before vaccines were introduced.

In the 1959 Vital Statistics published in the British Medical Journal, measles was considered a very mild disease that had few serious complications:^[1]

In 1998, Pamela Dyne, Associate Residency Director, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, stated in an emedicine.com article that measles was usually benign and uncomplicated:^[2]

As is usually the case, the people and sources stating that measles is not a deadly disease were either ignored and/or forgotten. Studies and whistleblowers that alerted the public to the dangerous and deadly consequences of the vaccines were conveniently swept under the rug. A successful pharmaceutical propaganda campaign has convinced the public that the vaccines save lives and that this highly contagious disease has been largely controlled. Any sudden outbreaks are considered a disease of the unvaccinated and a direct result of their “anti-scientific” ways. The unvaccinated are seen as a walking threat, as “deadly and contagious” as the disease itself.

According to the New England Medical Journal, measles is one of the most highly contagious pathogens known to man. It states that, in a 100% susceptible population, a single case of measles results in 12 to 18 secondary cases on average. The WHO concurs with the NEJM in that the measles is one of the worlds most highly contagious “viral” diseases and that it can lead to severe complications and death in the unvaccinated. According to the CDC, if one person has the measles, 90% of the people next to that person who are not “immune” will become “infected.”

These are some rather scary sounding claims for a “viral” disease that was once considered an inevitable, mild, benign, and uncomplicated disease of moderate severity and low fatality. This raises some very interesting questions. Do the claims of the measles “virus” being a highly contagious disease actually hold up when reviewing the literature? Was this super “infectious” disease able to be successfully transmitted from the fluids of a sick host into either a healthy human or animal subject? Were researchers actually able to recreate the exact same disease experimentally? If we are to judge the “highly contagious” nature of this “virus” based upon the attempted transmission experiments throughout the 19th and 20th centuries involving the use of the blood, tears, nasal mucous, lung fluid, and the discharge from measles scabs, the evidence shows the exact opposite of a “highly contagious” disease. In fact, it shows that measles is not contagious at all.

Summary of Human and Animal Experiments

Below is a bullet-point summary, for the complete details, refer to the original lengthier article.

• In 1758, Francis Home attempted the first inoculations of measles fluids into patients and concluded that in most instances, he succeeded in producing the disease in a mild and modified form
• However, Erasmus Darwin was not impressed with the results and stated that some attempts had been made, but a difficulty seemed to arise in giving the disease
• C. J. Themmen’s own experiments using the tears, sweat, and other fluids from measles patients on 5 children were all negative
• Chapman in Philadelphia in 1801 tried in vain to inoculate measles by means of blood, tears, the mucus of the nostrils and bronchia, the eruptive matter in the cuticle without success
• In 1809, Willan inoculated three children with the fluid of miliary vesicles in measles but without success
• In 1810, Wachsel attempted to inoculate an 18-year-old with measles, but this was said to be doubtful and was considered a “natural” infection rather than an experimental one based upon the length of time it took for the symptoms to develop
• In 1822, Dr. Frigori tried to infect 6 children with measles which produced mild non-specific symptoms, but they did not develop measles
• Frigori was not satisfied with the results and attempted to infect himself without success
• In 1822, Dr. Negri tried to infect two children with measles and came up with the same negative results as Dr. Frigori
• In 1822, Speranza attempted to infect 4 children using similar methods, but without success
• In 1834, Albers tried to infect four children with measles, 2 in the way of Home, and 2 by way of vaccination, and none of the 4 fell ill
• Albers quoted Alexander Monro, Bourgois and Spray as having made unsuccessful inoculations with saliva, tears, and cutaneous scales
• In 1890, Hugh Thompson attempted to inoculate 2 children with measles and failed in both instances
• In 1905, Ludvig Hektoen attempted to infect 2 healthy people with measles using the blood of sick patients
• To do so, he used two flasks with ascites broth 50 c.c. (peptone broth two parts, ascitic fluid heated to 55° C. for 54 minutes one part) that were inoculated with one and three c.c. of blood and incubated at 37° C. for 24 hours
• He then made subcultures upon ascites agar, glycerin agar, and Loeffler’s serum
• This was injected into the two volunteers, who were both recently recovering from similar symptoms with scarlett fever, who experienced non-specific symptoms that were questionable as to whether they experienced measles
• During the winter months of 1918 to 1919, Andrew Sellards attempted to recreate the results obtained by Hektoen
• To do so, he inoculated the blood of measles patients in 8 healthy volunteers without prior history of measles exposure, starting with just the blood of a patient obtained 12 hours after eruption that was mixed with 9 parts of isotonic salt solution and then inoculated subcutaneously into a volunteer, and yet no symptoms followed
• In the next series by Sellards, the blood of a measles patient obtained 12 hours after a rash was either incubated in ascitic broth or defibrinated
• Both preparations were injected into 2 volunteers subcutaneously, and, once again, no symptoms occurred in these series of experiments
• More intensive injections took place as blood was taken in citrate from 2 pre-eruptive measles cases, mixed together, and then injected both subcutaneously and intramuscularly into 2 more volunteers and repeated twenty-four hours later
• However, no symptoms occurred, and after 3 weeks, these same volunteers were exposed to an early measles case and had secretions inoculated into their mucus membranes and continued to remain symptom free
• In 1919, Alfred F Hess M.D. sent a letter to the editor Journal of the American Medical Association in response to Sellards experimental results, stating that “it is remarkable that Sellards was unable to produce this highly infectious disease by means of the blood or the nasal secretion of infected individuals.”
• Hess was unable to do the same with chickenpox and declared that “we are confronted with two diseases—the two most infectious of the endemic diseases in this part of the world—which we are unable to transmit artificially from man to man.”
• Turning to animal experiments, Sellards admitted that the results of experimental infection of measles with monkeys varied rather remarkably
• Sellards bgan by looking at the work of Anderson and Goldberger in 1911, where much of the vital information from these experiments was missing or not available
• The researchers used 3 different species of monkeys that experienced only very mild symptoms, with many experiencing no symptoms at all
• Hektoen and Eggers inoculated two monkeys with the blood taken 24 hours after the rash appeared, and no rash or respiratory complications were observed in either monkey
• The researchers claimed that their results, when combined with those obtained from Anderson and Goldberg, indicated that monkey’s were susceptible to a “mild kind of measles“
• Lucas and Pfizer had two monkeys injected with the blood of a measles patient, and no rash nor any febrile reactions occurred in either monkey
• Sellards stated that any interpretation from their experimental results was difficult as several control monkeys died after inoculation as well as some of those inoculated with the “virus” two weeks after the injection of measles blood
• In 1911, Nicolle and Conseil claimed that they had confirmed the work of Anderson and Golderger
• However, when one monkey was injected with the blood taken from a measles patient, no symptoms developed beyond a rise in temperature
• Blood from this monkey was injected into another monkey that remained entirely normal
• In 1920, the same researchers reported on results from experiments conducted in 1913 where the transfer of measles was attempted from a child to monkeys, re-inoculated into a child, and again into the monkeys
• This resulted in the monkeys experiencing no symptoms other than a febrile reaction
• No normal baseline temperature ranges for the monkeys were reported, nor were any of the symptoms experienced by the child described, and thus, Sellard felt that it was inadvisable to draw any conclusions from these results as such important information was missing
• Tunnicliff inoculated the blood of a measles patient into a monkey that resulted in no definite febrile reactions, no rash, no Koplik spots, nor any other indication of measles in the “infected” monkey
• Jurgelunas tried to produce measles in monkeys using inoculations of the blood and mucus secretions from measles patients as well as by exposing the animals in to patients measles wards, and had to conclude that all of his results were negative
• One monkey injected with defibrinated blood ultimately formed a rash and died 11 days after injection, yet Jurgelunas considered that the rash did not conform to that seen in measles, and therefore, measles was not the cause of death
• Another monkey was injected with blood aquired 24 hours after the rash appeared in the measles patient, and no symptoms developed
• A third monkey injected with blood taken from the second day after the rash appeared also developed no symptoms
• Two monkeys were exposed to patients in the measles wards, spending five days with acute patients and two days with covalescent patients, and neither developed any symptoms
• Several other experiments were carried out in other monkeys with mucous secretions from measles patients, which all yielded negative results
• In 1921, Blake and Trask claimed that they had successfully infected 8 out of 10 monkeys with measles, thus “confirming” the work of Anderson and Goldberger, Hektoen and Eggers, and Lucas and Pfizer, yet the rash that appeared did not differ from rashes that occur in monkeys without measles and febrile reactions only occurred in those animals that were inoculated with contaminated materials
• In 1918 and 1919, Sellards and Wenworth inoculated 3 monkeys in various ways, including intensive injections of blood from measles patients, and the animals remained well without any evidence of measles, even under favorable conditions meant to bring about the disease
• In a separate experiment, blood from measles patients was injected simultaneously into 2 men and two monkeys, with both men remaining symptom-free, and only one of the two monkeys developing symptoms that were not suggestive of measles
• As the two men remained healthy, Sellards concluded that the monkey was not suffering from a measles “virus”
• Sellards also mentioned that his own experiments using mucous secretions only resulted in negative findings that the injection of the blood from measles patients has not conclusively demonstrated measles infection
• Regarding his own experimental results, as well as taking into account those from researchers before him, Sellards concluded that there was no exact proof of the susceptibility of monkeys to measles
• He considered that using the reactions in monkeys as a way of studying measles was unsatisfactory
• He also considered the filterability of the “virus” an entirely open question
• Grund injected rabbits intratrachaelly with mucous secretions from measles patients, and of the 23 animals experimented on, a large number remained without illness
• No febrile reaction or leucopenia emerged, and immunity tests were contradictory
• Grund concluded that no one individual animal gave a typical picture of measles
• While Duval and D’Aunoy believed that they had reproduced measles by injecting the blood of measles patients into rabbits, Sellards concluded that their findings would require extensive confirmation and elaborate controls in order to confirm
• The researchers also studied guinea pigs and believed them susceptible to measles, but some of the essential data was not present in their report, with incomplete information on temperature and leucocyte counts that would not lead one to logically come to  the same conclusion
• Tunnicliff and Moody injected 9 rabbits intratrachaelly with mucous secretions, and while rashes were observed in 8 of them, no other definite symptoms developed
• Kawamura used blood from monkeys that were inoculated with the blood from measles patients and then attempted to transmit disease from the monkey to both guinea pigs and rabbits without success
• Nicolle and Consil concluded that rabbits and guinea pigs were not susceptible to measles after attempting to inoculate these animals unsuccessfully
• Based upon the experimental results of others, Sellards concluded that symptoms in rabbits were even less definite than those seen in monkeys
• Thus, he believed that accepting rabbits and guinea pigs as susceptible to measles, or even that the “virus” could survive within these animals, was not warranted based upon the evidence submitted
• When discussing the transmission of measles to man, Sellards stated that injecting the blood of a measles patient, where the “virus” was assumed to reside, into a healthy subject, does not mean that one will acquire measles
• He reiterated that his own work involving the injection of the blood of measles into healthy subjects only produced negative results
• On the transmission of measles into animals, Sellards stated that there was no convincing proof of the susceptibility of monkeys to a measles “virus”
• He felt that all observers agreed that the symptoms produced in monkey experiments were rather vague and that experienced investigators reported conflicting results and marked variations
• No matter what the mode of inoculation, the interpretation of the results remained the chief difficulty
• The experimental reactions were too mild to determine that they were the result of a measles “virus” from the human patient
• Sellards believed that it was important to come to an exact method of study for all future research rather than pile up a massive amount of data that was reliant upon one or two doubtful methods
• He concluded by stating that the cardinal problems remaining to be solved for measles were:
  • The demonstration of the causative microorganism
  • The cultivation of the microorganism
  • The experimental recreation of the disease in animals

Footnotes