Make Measles Great Again

Florida is "experimenting" with children's lives

Recently, the Weston A Price Foundation posted this on Instagram.

Organizations claiming to care about children while continually putting children at risk is a level of dissonance that’s hard to understand. Yet it’s occurring at an increasing scale.

If you’re wondering if Price’s “reimagining” of measles implies not getting vaccinated, well, that’s one layer. There’s an even more mind-boggling level, however: the idea that measles isn’t even a virus.

So if it’s not a virus, what causes the measles?  Since measles is obviously an effort by the body to detoxify, environmental toxins, especially in the water, are a likely candidate. The decline in measles in industrialized countries, especially deaths from measles, parallels the cleaning up of our cities and cleaner water for everyone. Diets also improved, especially up to the Second World War, when people still drank whole milk, ate butter and took cod liver oil.

Not only whole milk, but raw whole milk, as the foundation is a big fan even as the CDC notes 202 bacterial outbreaks from raw milk between 1998-2018, as well as the current outbreak from raw cheddar cheese.

The appeal to nature fallacy persists, however: if something comes from nature, it must be good. This is why one commenter on the above graphic wishes the following measles infection for her children:

When asked for clarification—someone replied wondering if she meant “wouldn’t”—the commenter doubled down.

So much misinformation in such a short space. Here goes:

• Getting measles does not protect you against cancers

• Vaccination is much safer than being infected with measles

• You can’t “shed” Covid-19 vaccines, despite anti-vax claims

Further context for the first claim:

In 2014, The Mayo Clinic published a report about a patient with multiple myeloma who went into remission after receiving an experimental therapy using a measles-derived virus. However, this is not the same as a "naturally occuring" measles infection. They were using a modified virus that is weakened, similarly, in fact, to a measles vaccine.

This sort of response to a Price Foundation post isn’t surprising given that the organization publishes dicey narratives around Covid-19 and boost EMF and 5G conspiracy theories.

Andrew Kaufman is a big contributor to the Price Foundation site. Besides spreading rampant vaccine misinformation, Kaufman is known for practices like drinking turpentine, which was thought to be protective against parasites some 500 years ago (and was roundly debunked generations ago).

andrewkaufmanmd

A post shared by @andrewkaufmanmd

Like the romanticized myth pushed by RFK Jr about polio, Price is pushing the idea that environmental hygiene is really the reason for lower measles rates.

Despite their claims, measles is exceptionally dangerous for children, and not just those who are malnourished (as the anti-vax story often goes).

In reality, there are so many complications to measles, including pneumonia (the death rate in the 1920s from measles pneumonia was 30%) brain inflammation, corneal ulceration (which can permanently scar your cornea). Measles infection can suppress your immune systems for months after infection, especially babies and children under 5.