Tag: measles

Most Kids Can Fight Measles Naturally — And Having The Virus May Even Make Them Stronger

Children can overcome measles — and in some cases, even become stronger for having fought it off, according to Dr. Ben Edwards, an integrative medicine family practitioner in Lubbock, Texas, who runs a private practice serving roughly 2,000 patients.

In 2025, Edwards successfully treated roughly 300 children in Gaines County, Texas, who had the measles.

In an exclusive interview this week with The Defender, Edwards shared why he believes recent media reports spreading fear about measles are misguided — and how parents can help their children if they become infected with the virus.

“It’s unfortunate when the fear-mongering starts up instead of just some informed consent and truth-telling, which is what needs to happen,” Edwards said.

Edwards acknowledged that measles is a highly infectious virus, so prevention may not always be realistic once measles starts circulating in a person’s community.

For example, he said he got measles last year from being in close contact with the many children he treated — even though he was fully vaccinated against measles. The latest research shows that vaccinated people can and do spread measles.

“It’s just a pretty contagious thing,” Edwards said. “So from a preventative standpoint, for those who choose not to vaccinate, I think the best bet is just trying to bolster your own ‘terrain,’ is how I would term that — your immune system.”

The stronger a person’s immune system, the more likely it will be able to identify and deal with the measles virus, he said. Someone who has a strong immune system may even be able to handle the measles virus without showing symptoms of illness, he added.

Edwards also mentioned general prevention methods to mitigate the spread of any illness, such as frequent hand-washing and avoiding sharing saliva or airspace with someone who is sick.

However, given how easily measles spreads once it’s in a community, Edwards recommended focusing on how to treat it.

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The Politics Of Measles

By the middle point of 20th-century American history, measles was widely considered a rite of passage for kids. You get it and you shake it off. You earn lifetime immunity. This was true of every generation just before mine.

For the previous century, measles had become ever less dangerous with sanitation and nutrition. By the time the vaccine came along, it was fully controlled and only very rarely led to hospitalization. The protocols were taught in every school and understood by all classes.

I was apparently part of the first generation to receive the inoculation. It was convenient, but not necessary simply because society had systems and traditions in place to manage it well. How much difference did the shot make in driving infection to zero? Some, surely, and this added to the prestige of vaccines.

That said, I did get chicken pox as a natural infection and recall well what it was like. That no longer happens except in a few communities. I was the last to experience this and I’m happy to share the experience.

My parents came to me excitedly and said we were going to a party. I found myself among a group of kids I did not know and we played and played for hours. Then we left. That was fun, I thought, but a bit confusing. The next day, I woke up with itchy red spots.

My parents cheered. Their plan had worked. I recalled feeling great confusion. Why were my parents celebrating my sickness? It seemed very odd. They had their reasons. They knew the science.

They explained to me how the immune system works and why it is best that I get this when I’m young rather than old. My immunity would be durable and be boosted later in life as my own kids caught the normal childhood infections, which in turn would protect me from the related infection of shingles.

There is this tendency now to treat these strategies as paleolithic as compared with syringes and fluids in the childhood vaccination schedule. Actually, we should look back on these days as the height of serious science. My parents knew exactly what they were doing and it taught me a valuable lesson as a kid. I learned about the high complexity of the immune system that needs exposure as training.

Eventually, of course, the chicken pox vaccine came along and many others as well, resulting in a vast mixture of combined shot after shot. Industry profited. Human health suffered. The Trump administration is trying to fix the problem. Industry doesn’t like that. It is calling in favors from politicians to stop the return to science.

This takes us to the wild drama now playing itself out in Pennsylvania. In April of this year, the media and the governor’s office started going on about a measles outbreak. It was centered in Lancaster and Lebanon counties – both with sizable Amish and Mennonite populations.

The framing here matters. The Amish and Mennonite communities routinely expose children, just as my parents did. It is not an “outbreak” but an application of sophisticated science.

The health of this community ranks among the highest. The most common health issues affecting children in the United States are nearly absent among the Amish, including autism, obesity, diabetes, ADHD, and so on.

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania set up 91 pop-up clinics around the infected community and jabbed kids with more than 4,000 doses using the MMR shot that many people connect to the rise of autism. Forty more clinics are planned.

In science, you have the control group and the tested group. The Amish are the control and keep revealing that there might be a better way. Eliminate the control and you eliminate the embarrassment. This is precisely what both Pfizer and Moderna did after their own tests of the COVID shot: they pushed it on the saline group following first results.

In Pennsylvania, opposition arose to this push for industrial inoculation, and understandably so. In the post-COVID era, trust in public health is depleted to near zero.

Here is where the current drama picked up. On Aug. 14, a newborn child died in Strasburg Township, Lancaster County. The cause of death was later given by the county coroner: lacerated/ruptured spleen, massive blood loss. The postmortem used the PCR test (which detects presence, not infection) and found measles in utero. Obviously, this baby could not otherwise have been vaccinated. It is pointless to call a baby unvaccinated for measles, just as it is ridiculous to observe the infant is illiterate.

A week later, the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced two “measles-associated” deaths in Lancaster County: unvaccinated residents, they said. They claimed these were the first measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years. There were no other details given: nothing about the cause of death, nothing about ages, nothing about anything.

Governor Josh Shapiro announced two deaths caused by measles. Not merely associated or related, but caused. The media ran with the story, using the language of causation. He called the deaths preventable and tied them to lack of immunization. He highlighted his clinic campaign and told reporters that Secretary Kennedy had called to offer help with the outbreak to which he responded:

“I was very, very blunt with him, and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania.”

It was at this point that the narrative fell apart. The CDC called. The governor’s office could give no more information. The Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons spoke out and said that the coroner’s office has zero deaths with measles listed as immediate cause; one person died with measles, not from it.

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MMR Vaccine-Linked Deaths Outnumber Measles Deaths in 2026

So far in 2026, there have been ZERO confirmed measles deaths and at least THREE MMR vaccine-linked deaths in the United States.

Yet Americans hear virtually nothing about deaths occurring after MMR vaccination. Instead, the captured mass media blasted out headlines claiming that two children in Pennsylvania had died from measles—claims that have since fallen apart under scrutiny. Meanwhile, three highly concerning MMR-linked deaths have already appeared in VAERS this year:

2026 U.S. MMR VACCINE DEATH REPORTS (VAERS): 3

1-year-old boy: fatal cardiac arrest just ONE DAY after MMR

The first case involves a 1-year-old boy who suffered fatal cardiac arrest just one day after receiving MMR. The extraordinarily short interval makes the report impossible to simply dismiss as some distant event occurring long after vaccination. Along with MMR, he was also subjected to a battery of four additional vaccines—Varivax, Havrix, Vaxelis, and Prevnar 20—for five vaccines total at the same visit. The child was hyper-vaccinated and died the following day.

1-year-old girl: died from disseminated rubella after MMR

The second case is even more biologically concerning. A 1-year-old girl died from disseminated rubella after receiving MMR. She reportedly had an undiagnosed primary immunodeficiency when she was vaccinated.

This matters because MMR does not contain an inert rubella antigen. It contains a live attenuated rubella virus designed to replicate in a controlled manner and generate immunity. In a person with severe immune dysfunction, however, the immune system can fail to adequately contain or eliminate the attenuated virus. Instead of remaining limited, vaccine-strain virus can persist and disseminate into tissues throughout the body leading to multi-organ failure.

76-year-old woman: vaccine-strain measles detected during fatal pneumonia

The third case may be the most remarkable of all. A 76-year-old woman developed measles vaccine-associated pneumonia after receiving MMR, progressed to severe respiratory failure, and died after a 16-day hospitalization.

Critically, vaccine-strain measles was detected in her respiratory tract, including pulmonary samples. In other words, this was not simply a patient who happened to test positive for measles after vaccination. Molecular testing identified the vaccine strain itself.

The measles component of MMR is also a live attenuated virus. In immunocompromised individuals, the weakened virus can escape normal immune control, continue replicating, and produce serious systemic disease. When that process involves the lungs, it can produce measles pneumonitis or pneumonia, impair oxygen exchange, and progress to respiratory failure.

2026 U.S. MEASLES DEATHS: 0

Now contrast those three reports with what happened in Pennsylvania.

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RESIGN: Democrat Josh Shapiro Still Refuses to Answer Basic Questions on Two So-Called Measles Deaths — Second Person Still Unkown

Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro is still refusing to provide the public with basic information about two deaths his administration labeled “measles-associated,” even after the Lancaster County coroner determined that one of the individuals, a newborn baby, died from a ruptured spleen and massive blood loss, not measles.

During a Friday press conference, a reporter confronted Shapiro directly about the serious discrepancy between his administration’s explosive announcement and the findings of Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni.

“Since you had your news conference in Lancaster, we’ve learned a little bit more information about the case with the baby—that it was a newborn,” the reporter said.

“The coroner said that it was a ruptured spleen and didn’t consider it a measles death,” she continued. “Given the fact that we’re in an environment where there is misinformation and there is confusion, why not be a little more specific and transparent about that case?”

Shapiro would not answer. He waved the question off as if Pennsylvanians were not entitled to know whether their governor just stood in a hospital and used a dead infant as a political prop.

The Democrat governor dismissed the growing demands for transparency as “conspiracy theories.”

“I don’t think it serves the interest of public health or slows the spread of this outbreak for me to get into a back-and-forth about conspiracy theories that are showing up online,” Shapiro said.

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Josh Shapiro falsely blames baby’s death on RFK Jr, measles vaccine hesitancy—coroner says infant died from ruptured spleen

An infant whose death Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro indicated was because of measles has been revealed to have actually been caused by a ruptured spleen, according to the coroner who looked into the death.

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Health Department had said that there were two deaths in the state that were “measles-associated” but did not say if the two deaths were actually from measles. During the press conference, Shapiro said that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been “spreading misinformation” about vaccines and “sharing conspiracy theories” about vaccines that lead to these consequences. 

That turned into a spat between Kennedy and Shapiro online, where Kennedy accused the governor of “gaslighting” and Shapiro responding that Kennedy’s various claims about vaccines are “inaccurate and misleading.”

In a post, Shapiro stated, “In Pennsylvania, 70 people who have tested positive for measles have been hospitalized this year — and yesterday, our @PAHealthDept announced that two Pennsylvanians who tested positive for measles have died. According to doctors and medical experts, the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your kids, and your community against measles. But we have seen vaccination rates decline on RFK’s watch.”

At the time of the press conference, no information was given about the deaths. But the Pennsylvania Department of Health later said in a post to social media that the Lancaster County Coroner stated that their office was “reviewing an infant death with a positive measles test.” The child, who was a newborn, would not have been vaccinated. Children generally do not get the measles vaccine until they are over 12 months old, or 6 months if they are traveling abroad, meaning vaccine hesitancy would have nothing to do with the death.

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PA Gov. Josh Shapiro and State Health Officials Caught Pushing Fake Measles Death Narrative in Lancaster County — Officials Refuse to Cooperate as County Coroner Confirms ZERO Deaths FROM Measles

The mainstream media and leftist government bureaucrats are at it again, pushing panic, fear, and unverified headlines to control the public narrative, only to get caught red-handed when local officials demand basic transparency.

During a high-profile press conference on Tuesay, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, alongside state health officials and Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, announced that two “measles-associated deaths” occurred in Lancaster County.

The legacy media immediately ran with the headlines. Two people died FROM measles. Case closed. Get the shot. Blame the unvaccinated. Blame RFK Jr.

There’s just one major problem: Local authorities have ZERO record of these alleged deaths.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called out the massive discrepancies and the state’s sudden refusal to share basic factual data.

Kennedy said Shapiro accused him of promoting “conspiracy theories” after Kennedy noted that some Americans have religious objections to MMR because of fetal-cell substrate used in manufacturing.

Shapiro reportedly snapped that there is “no fetal tissue in the MMR.” Kennedy responded that Shapiro could not produce a single example of HHS “misinformation” when asked, yet repeated the smear on camera anyway, while ignoring the fact that Pennsylvania’s own drop in vaccination rates largely occurred during the Biden years, a fact Shapiro reportedly admitted in a private call with RFK Jr.

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Byron Donalds: ‘Rampant Illegal Immigration’ from Biden Administration to Blame for Measles Outbreak

During Sunday’s broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” host Margaret Brennan attempted to challenge Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) on Florida’s vaccination policy, as it pertained to an apparent measles outbreak in his home state.

Donalds, the Republican nominee for Florida governor, said the measles outbreak was a product of illegal immigration that was left unchecked by the Biden administration.

Partial transcript as follows:

DONALDS: I think that’s much more of a constructive conversation about costs and health care and trying to stabilize prices than just simply vaccinations.

BRENNAN: Right. But that also doesn’t address coverage for them or how they pay for them. But I hear you. I’m sure a lot of people would like to know what they’re paying.

But in terms of keeping people healthy, nearly all of Florida is below the 95% immunization rate for herd immunity for measles. So, is your message to Florida parents, get your kids vaccinated against that one?

DONALDS: No. Actually, my message to Floridians and, quite frankly to Americans is, the reason why we have seen a measles outbreak in certain parts of the country is because of rampant illegal immigration into the United States from the previous administration.

Margaret, before Joe Biden went into office, when our borders were basically secure —

BRENNAN: What evidence do you have of that?

DONALDS: Margaret, we’ve seen the outbreaks in El Paso, Texas, in southwest Florida, where I live, and many other parts where you know that you have a situation, people have come into the country illegally, have not had that vaccination schedule. And not the ones today on young kids, that parents do have concerns about. I’m talking about previous ones, where people weren’t even getting the measles vaccine or mumps and rubella.

BRENNAN: So, you want them to be vaccinated?

DONALDS: So, the key thing is you, number one, you’ve got to control immigration into your country. You can’t have an entire segment of people, more than 10 million, come into your country without that vaccination schedule. That’s how you end up having some of these outbreaks.

BRENNAN: OK.

DONALDS: And so that’s number one. But number two, and I will tell, we can talk vaccinations, but the real issue in health care is the cost for Americans and the cost for Floridians.

BRENNAN: Yes.

DONALDS: And we have already seen that the regulatory framework of the Affordable Care Act is driving up costs on every American.

BRENNAN: OK.

DONALDS: And that’s what I want to stay focused on as the next governor of Florida.

BRENNAN: OK. So, you want vaccinated immigrants.

Let me ask you about some of those immigrants. There are —

DONALDS: Actually, I want — I just want legal immigrants.

BRENNAN: Uh-huh. OK.

DONALDS: To be clear, I just want legal immigration with assimilation.

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ICAN Obtains Records Showing Large Numbers of Pertussis and Measles Cases Among the Vaccinated

While the unvaccinated get blamed, through legal demand, ICAN has obtained documentation showing that in 2025 a large number of the cases of pertussis in West Virginia and measles in New York state were among the vaccinated!

In 2025, news headlines covered outbreaks of pertussis in West Virgina and measles in New York. Health authorities used these outbreaks as an excuse to crush individual and civil rights, coerce vaccination, and refuse medical exemptions by claiming the unvaccinated were falling ill.

ICAN decided to dig into how many were, in fact, unvaccinated. We recently received responses from West Virginia and New York and, for those following ICAN for a while, the results will not be surprising:

According to the chart below provided by WV’s department of health, 71% of the West Virginia cases in 2025 were in individuals who were up to date on their vaccines—and looking back on all cases over the past 7 years, 68% of cases were in individuals who were up to date.

This is not surprising given that the pertussis vaccine does not stop infection or transmission; in many situations, fully vaccinated people assume they are “protected,” get infected and may have fewer symptoms, and then proceed to transmit pertussis to others.

Similarly, in the measles outbreak in New York, 33% of individuals with measles had received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine and 28% purportedly had an “unknown vaccination status.”

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The Atlantic Busted Fabricating Dead Kid Measles Story

Last Thursday, The Atlantic published a heart-wrenching story about an 11-month-old child who died of measles. Written in the second person from the perspective of a mother whose two unvaccinated children fell ill with the disease, the story is rich with personal detail;

“You plant her on the couch with a blanket and put Bluey on the TV while she drifts in and out of sleep…” 

“While the kids are napping, you tap a list of your daughter’s symptoms into Google and find a slew of diseases that more or less match up…”

“Her cough wracks her whole body, rounding her delicate bird shoulders. She does not sleep well. And as you lift up her pajama top to check her rash one morning, you see that her breathing is labored, shadows pooling between her ribs when she sucks in air.” 

Turns out, NONE OF THAT HAPPENED. The Atlantic‘s Elizabeth Bruenig simply made it up, leading to mass confusion.

As Laura Hazard Owen of NiemanLab – who initially busted Bruenig – writes:

When I initially read Bruenig’s story, I was stunned: An Atlantic staff writer’s unvaccinated child had died of measles in the 2020s, and now she was writing about it? At the end of Bruenig’s piece, though, there’s an editor’s note: “This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.” That was the point when I sent a gift link to my mom group: “as far as I can tell this piece is fiction. What do we think about this choice? I am very conflicted!!!” My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story. I wondered if the key people whose minds might be changed by it — people who don’t vaccinate their kids — would brush it off as fiction, or fake.

Following the publication, two journalists reached out to Owen to let her know that they were similarly confused, as there “was not an editor’s note/disclaimer on the piece at all.” 

What’s more, The Atlantic’s own spokesperson told one of the journalists: “This is based on a mother’s real account,” – after which the outlet added a disclaimer. 

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95% of Measles Cases Classified as ‘Unvaccinated or Unknown,’ Obscuring Actual Vaccination Status: CDC Data

New data published last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 95% of U.S. measles cases in 2026 are classified as “Unvaccinated or Unknown.”

However, the agency’s own table makes clear that this figure does not mean 95% of cases occurred in confirmed unvaccinated individuals.

Instead, the CDC combines two fundamentally different categories—“unvaccinated” and “vaccination status unknown”—into a single percentage, preventing the public from knowing how many cases actually involved confirmed unvaccinated people.

The CDC does not disclose how much of the 95% figure represents:

  • individuals confirmed to be unvaccinated, versus
  • individuals whose vaccination records were unavailable, missing, or not verified

As a result, the public cannot determine whether most measles cases occurred in unvaccinated individuals or simply in individuals whose vaccination status was never established.

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