Infants face greater risk of measles if mothers were vaccinated

While the medical community claims that measles vaccine prevents the childhood disease, a report in "Pediatrics," proves otherwise. The results show that infants born to mothers who received the vaccine are at far greater risk for having measles than other children.

Researchers from several health institutes, including the National Immunization Program, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studied infants whose mothers were born after 1963, when the national measles vaccine program began.

They found that the infants are more susceptible to measles than are infants of older mothers. "An increasing proportion of infants born in the United States may be susceptible to measles," the researchers wrote.

Infants are born with a natural protection from measles through the passive transmission of the mother's antibody and the antibody lasts for years.

When their maternally acquired antibodies are depleted, children may contract a mild case of the disease, which re-introduces the antibody and safeguards them for the rest of their life.

How long the initial protection lasts depends mainly on whether or not the mother has ever had measles herself. Women who have had the disease have a higher level of measles antibodies. Women who received the vaccine and did not contract the disease have lower antibody levels.

Since vaccinated mothers transfer less natural measles antibody to their newborns, they are more susceptible to the disease.

In the study, infants whose mothers were born after 1963 (and who presumably had been vaccinated for measles) had a measles attack

rate of 33%, compared with 12% for infants of older mothers who were not vaccinated.

"Our results suggest that infants whose mothers are born since measles vaccine licensure in 1963 are significantly more susceptible to measles than are infants of older mothers and that the risk of measles increases incrementally with each year increase in the maternal year of birth," the researchers concluded.

However, rather than suggest that the medical community re-think its stance on vaccines, the researchers actually used the report to urge doctors to vaccinate children even younger. Current medical recommendations call for infants to receive measles shots as early as 12 months of age.