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Thursday, June 13, 2013

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Liz Ditz

There's been a claim that the measles vaccine can and has caused SSPE. This claim is false.

"6.4. Only wild-type virus sequences have been found in SSPE
The description of specific clades and genotypes of MV has allowed the evaluation of mutations found in the MV RNA sequences from SSPE brain material against wild-type (clades B–G) viruses. All the vaccine viruses are derived from the Edmonston strain (clade A) but no clade A virus has been found in SSPE brain material. The sequences found in SSPE brain are related to the wild-type viruses circulating at the time of initial infection of the child and not to those circulating at the time of onset of symptoms. Hence, the virus which initially infected the child, appears to persist and SSPE is not due to a super-infection by viruses circulating during the onset of symptoms (Jin et al., 2002) (Rima et al., 1995); Rota, personal communication). To the best of the authors’ knowledge no vaccine virus, genotype A, sequences have been obtained from SSPE cases. SSPE has been vastly reduced in incidence after successful control of measles by vaccination (Dyken et al., 1989). In contrast, vaccine strains have been identified in MV infections in immuno-compromised patients who died from MIBE (Bitnun et al., 1999) and giant cell pneumonia (Mawhinney et al., 1971)."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15893837

(thank you Catherina Becker for the link)

Liz Ditz

Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis: More Cases of This Fatal Disease Are Prevented by Measles Immunization than Was Previously Recognized

Results ... The estimated risk of developing SSPE was 10-fold higher than the previous estimate reported for the United States in 1982

Conclusions Vaccination against measles prevents more cases of SSPE than was originally estimated

(again, H/T Catherina Becker)

Chris

It was not until the 1960s that they even connected SSPE to measles. There was no explanation why a healthy child would just start deteriorating.

Then the measles vaccine came along, and some thought it contributed. It would be hard to make a connection because it manifests years after the measles infection. But it turns out as more and more kids got vaccinated, there were fewer cases of SSPE.

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