Has anyone been infected with measles by a person who was recently

December 9, 2019 12:39 PM

Has anyone been infected with measles by a person who was recently vaccinated for it? I am very strongly in favor of vaccination for childhood diseases, and in favor of most newer, and sometimes for-profit vaccines (Gardasil for HPV, Shingrix). The measles vaccine is a live virus, and someone is claiming that people have contracted measles from a vaccinated person. This *has* happened with live polio vaccine, but I can't find evidence of this happening with measles. Yes, I am engaged in a stupid discussion with an anti-vaxxer. But I would like to have facts, despite knowing they won't work.
posted by theora55 to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Not for MMR. https://immunizeusa.org/ static/immunize/ blog/2016/september/24/ vaccine-shedding/index.html

There are 11 (eleven) cases of infections attributed to a patient infected by a recently vaccinated person.

There are extremely small pieces of fact in this rumor that your antivax interlocutor is spreading.
posted by bilabial at 12:46 PM on December 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

There are 11 (eleven) cases of infections attributed to a patient infected by a recently vaccinated person.

In case it wasn't totally clear from bilabial's post, there are 11 known cases of non-vaccinated people infected (with a weakened/attenuated virus) by people who received the *chicken pox* vaccine, not MMR. Tens of millions of people have been vaccinated against chicken pox, so this is a vanishingly rare thing.

I don't believe there's any evidence this has ever happened with the MMR vaccine, and I don't believe that it's even possible to detect shedding of the measles virus after vaccination.
posted by pullayup at 12:57 PM on December 9, 2019 [9 favorites]

There is a case study showing that a person "fully vaccinated" against measles nevertheless developed measles and transmitted it to four other people, two of whom were also fully vaccinated, and two of whom showed evidence of previous measles infection:

When it comes to the measles vaccine, two shots are better than one. Most people in the United States are initially vaccinated against the virus shortly after their first birthday and return for a booster shot as a toddler. Less than 1% of people who get both shots will contract the potentially lethal skin and respiratory infection. And even if a fully vaccinated person does become infected—a rare situation known as “vaccine failure”—they weren’t thought to be contagious.

That’s why a fully vaccinated 22-year-old theater employee in New York City who developed the measles in 2011 was released without hospitalization or quarantine. But like Typhoid Mary, this patient turned out to be unwittingly contagious. Ultimately, she transmitted the measles to four other people, according to a recent report in Clinical Infectious Diseases that tracked symptoms in the 88 people with whom “Measles Mary” interacted while she was sick. Surprisingly, two of the secondary patients had been fully vaccinated. And although the other two had no record of receiving the vaccine, they both showed signs of previous measles exposure that should have conferred immunity.

What this article published in Science magazine does not say however, is that the measles strain passed to the four other people was the vaccine strain, and I would say the clear implication of the article is that it was not the vaccine strain, yet I've seen claims in an anti-vaxxer blog that it was the vaccine strain that "Mary" passed on, though I'm inclined to believe that the blogger simply misread the article.
posted by jamjam at 2:35 PM on December 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

The full paper shows the genotype of the strain involved in the outbreak to be D4, while all measles vaccines are derived from genotype A strains. So it is not the vaccine strain which was transmitted.
posted by penguinliz at 8:22 PM on December 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: So, the person transmitted measles contracted in the ordinary course of events, not measles contracted from vaccine. The issue is that the vax was not 100% effective.

The antivaxxer is not a rational thinker. I wish people would focus on real problems, like climate, not fake issues.

Thank you for the responses.
posted by theora55 at 8:17 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]