Like many people, I first heard of the measles outbreak in California from Brian Williams on NBC News. He said that officials were “scrambling” to find people who might have been exposed to the measles which had “sickened” 55 people (at that time). Soon, other networks started ticking off increasing numbers of cases, but  I haven’t heard of anyone going to the hospital, much less dying.

I had the measles when I was a child and so did my sisters. Back then, I think parents breathed a sigh of relief after the three major childhood illnesses (measles, mumps and chickenpox) had passed.  No one likes to see their child get sick and I’m not advocating that, but after that they are immune for life – no booster shots required.

Homeoprophylaxis is a better choice, in my opinion, than having parties to purposely expose children to others who are sick, because the dose is more controlled. Homeopathic remedies, called nosodes, are given in a systematic fashion to educate the immune system so that the body can respond to the disease appropriately. There is recent evidence of the effectiveness of homeoprophylaxis in Brazil (1) and Cuba (2) for their epidemics.

Measles is one of the targeted diseases in the HP Program and the program is flexible enough to adjust for possible exposure to specific diseases.  In other words, if you are concerned about measles or even if there is known exposure, you can contact your HP Supervisor to revise the schedule to take the measles nosode, morbillinum.

According for Dr. Eric G. Handler (3), health officer for Orange County, CA he says it was because the majority of measles cases are in “under-immunized” children, meaning children who had not had the present day ‘full’ series of vaccines. To me the obvious reason for the headlines is to get more children vaccinated. But if most cases were in under-vaccinated children, you can infer that many who became ill were fully immunized, but they are allowed to continue going to school, arguably being put at risk of contracting measles. Not to mention that the MMR vaccine is a live virus vaccine which can cause those vaccinated with it to shed the measles virus.

I hope this measles outbreak doesn’t spread to real epidemic proportions.  But don’t let the sound-bite headlines distract from facts presented and obscure solutions such as HP as an way to educate the immune system about the process of disease.

Ruth Pearson Smith, C.HP.

Vis-a-Vis Wellness Homeopathy

(1)” Homeopathic Prevention for Meningococcal Disease,” http://homeopathyplus.com.au/homeopathic-immunisation-for-meningococcal-disease/, website 2/22/2015.

(2)” Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control,” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20674839 , website 2/22/2015.

(3)”Measles Cases Linked to Disneyland Rise, and Debate Over Vaccinations Intensifies,”  website 2/22/2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/us/measles-cases-linked-to-disneyland-rise-and-debate-over-vaccinations-intensifies.html?_r=0