A rather breathless correspondent alleges he has been lied to again
"During a measles epidemic in 1959 (51000 cases), the British Medical
Journal (Feb 6 1959 ) reported that measles was "the commonest disease in
the world and normally a mild infection, complications are rare". Now we
are warned that children are in mortal danger from this disease. Either
this claim is not true "
The arithmetic is fairly simple. 1 in a 1000 is rare. 1 in a 100 is
rare to many people for many things.
A severe complication at those rates on those figures would lead on
those figures to 51 or 5100 children being at risk of death or permanent
injury of types we understand very well to be due to Measles. This seems
to me to be mortal danger worth trying to prevent or reduce.
Rapid Response:
Arithmetic
A rather breathless correspondent alleges he has been lied to again
"During a measles epidemic in 1959 (51000 cases), the British Medical
Journal (Feb 6 1959 ) reported that measles was "the commonest disease in
the world and normally a mild infection, complications are rare". Now we
are warned that children are in mortal danger from this disease. Either
this claim is not true "
The arithmetic is fairly simple. 1 in a 1000 is rare. 1 in a 100 is
rare to many people for many things.
A severe complication at those rates on those figures would lead on
those figures to 51 or 5100 children being at risk of death or permanent
injury of types we understand very well to be due to Measles. This seems
to me to be mortal danger worth trying to prevent or reduce.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests