By Dr. Mercola

Recently published research in the New England Journal of Medicine¹ investigated the reasons behind, and potential solutions, for mumps outbreaks reported to the CDC during the past several years. According to the authors, widespread use of the MMR vaccine had reduced the annual incidence of mumps in the US by more than 99 percent by 2005.

But then, suddenly, something changed.

In 2006, a large outbreak was reported among highly vaccinated populations in the US, and two additional outbreaks occurred during 2009 and 2010. The latter two occurred in American Orthodox Jewish communities in and around New York City.

In 2009, more than 3,500 people got sick, and the overwhelming majority of them – 89 percent – were children, who had received the CDC recommended two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Another eight percent had received one dose, putting the total numbers of students vaccinated at 97 percent!

Matters were much the same for the 2010 outbreak. Of the more than 1,000 people who contracted mumps that year, 77 percent had received two doses of the MMR.

Vaccinated Population Contracting and Spreading Disease

Virtually every outbreak of infectious disease in the U.S. for which there is a vaccine has been blamed on unvaccinated children – at least initially – but lately we’ve repeatedly seen that reported outbreaks of diseases like pertussis, influenza and mumps are occurring within the fully vaccinated population, even though the vaccine is supposed to prevent the disease in question.

This pattern is now so obvious that researchers have no choice but to try to address the discrepancy and come up with an explanation because, clearly, vaccinated people are contracting and facilitating the transmission of infectious diseases in much greater numbers than public health officials and doctors have been willing to admit.

The ludicrous explanation public health officials have come up with to try to explain the school-based mumps outbreak among fully vaccinated children is based on a theory that close and extended contact between the vaccinated children “bombarded students with large amounts of the virus” and allowed the mumps virus to “overwhelm the vaccine.”

As reported by NPR:²

“Public health officials… say it was the unique style of study in yeshivas, religious schools for Orthodox Jews. In a yeshiva, students are paired up in partnerships called chavrusas. The two students in a chavrusa share the same desk and the same book and engage in a vigorous dialogue about the day’s lesson. Throughout the school day, which lasts up to 15 hours in a yeshiva, the students rotate among different chavrusas, changing their study partner each time.

Albert Barskey, an epidemiologist with the CDC who worked to contain the outbreak, says the chavrusa style of studying probably exacerbated the spread of mumps. The mumps virus gets around on respiratory droplets, saliva and other bodily fluids. ‘Because of the close prolonged contact, uninfected students were probably bombarded with large amounts of the virus from the infected students, and the virus overwhelmed the vaccine,’ Barsky [says].”

Dr. Kenneth Bromberg, chairman of pediatrics and director of the Vaccine Study Center at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City told US News:³

“These outbreaks are similar to what we saw on college campuses where you have crowding. Vaccines are safe and effective, but the protective effect of a vaccine can be overcome in the right situation.”

Their answer to the problem?

Just add another booster shot! As a test, a third dose of MMR vaccine was administered to children in three schools in an effort to stem the outbreak. According to follow-up results, recently published in the journal Vaccine,⁴ the third dose appeared to be well tolerated, with just over seven percent of the students reporting at least one local or systemic adverse event in the two weeks following vaccination. The long-term effects of a third MMR shot is, naturally, completely unknown.

Essentially, the thinking is that if two shots are useless, maybe a third equally useless shot will fix the equation and amount to some kind of protection. Surely I cannot be the only one who questions the intelligence of this?

Especially considering the fact that Merck was recently sued for covering up the ineffectiveness of the mumps portion of the MMR vaccine, costing the US government millions of dollars in wasted funds over the past decade, and exposing children to unnecessary risks from the vaccine for very limited benefit. An antitrust class action lawsuit was also filed shortly thereafter, alleging Merck went to great lengths to manipulate test procedures and falsify results to prop up fraudulent efficacy claims, thereby maintaining its monopoly on the MMR vaccine market in the US.

And now we’re supposed to just shrug our shoulders and say “okay” to children getting yet another MMR booster shot? Granted, it hasn’t become a CDC recommendation yet, but based on past actions of public health officials covering up vaccine ineffectiveness and drug companies seeking expanded vaccine markets, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if another MMR booster was added to the vaccination schedule without adequate testing to prove safety and effectiveness.

Natural Versus Artificial Immunity

Vaccines are never 100 percent protective, and the reason for this is because they provide only artificial, temporary, typically inferior immunity compared to that your body would obtain from naturally contracting and recovering from an infection.

According to the CDC, the MMR vaccine is estimated to be somewhere between 76-95 percent effective (or at least it was, prior to the lawsuit accusing Merck of falsifying their studies to hide declining efficacy rates). The second MMR dose was added to the CDC recommended child vaccination schedule because up to 20 percent of individuals do not develop even temporary protection after the first dose. The second dose is intended to provide a “second chance” for the vaccine to work, which is further evidence of this shot’s ineffectiveness.

And who knows, we may potentially be looking at yet another booster shot being added to the vaccination schedule. But is adding booster shots really the best answer to address poor vaccine effectiveness?

In the case of mumps, immunity is typically permanent for those who get it in childhood. Like many of the childhood diseases we’re now vaccinating our children against, mumps is not a serious disease for the vast majority of children. I think it’s worth considering that, while the disease can in rare cases lead to complications, including inflammation of the brain, testicles and ovaries or deafness, vaccines as well carry serious health risks that can be greater for some than others..

The MMR vaccine can cause acute brain inflammation and encephalopathy (permanent brain dysfunction), which has been acknowledged by the U.S. Court of Claims in the awarding of federal compensation to MMR vaccine injured children. Recently, the Italian health ministry reignited the debate over the safety of the MMR vaccine when it conceded that the MMR vaccine caused autism in a now nine-year-old boy, who suffered brain inflammation and permanent brain damage after he was vaccinated.

There are no guarantees either way. Your child could be that rare instance where the disease causes serious complications, or your child could become another statistic of vaccine damage.

However, children, who contract and recover from mumps during childhood, are afforded robust, long lasting protection. Not so with the vaccine. Even after taking the health risks associated with each and every dose of the vaccine, your child still might contract mumps, and then face the same risks for complications from the disease as they would have otherwise. This is one reason why potential risks and benefits must be carefully weighed…

Read the full article here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/13/mmr-vaccine-ineffectiveness.aspx