The Truth About the Mumps Outbreaks, Not the Hype (Part 1)

by Heidi Stevenson

10 November 2009

Reports of mumps outbreaks are breaking out all over, along with fear mongering and pushes to get vaccinated, not to mention pointing fingers of blame at the unvaccinated. These reports are rife with flaws; almost nothing is as described. As a rule, the unvaccinated are blamed for the outbreaks. The severity of the disease is grossly distorted. Nothing is as it seems, if you take your guidance from news media.

Mumps Mortality Rate So Far is Zero

Today, most parents of small children don't recall a time when mumps was fairly routine as a childhood illness. As a result, dread of the disease is caused by rampant fear mongering from news media, medical agencies, and other vaccine proponents. However, the idea that mumps is something to be feared could not be further from the truth. Try to find a single report of a fatality resulting from these recent outbreaks, and you'll spend a lot of time searching.

The mortality rate from mumps is reported as 1.6% (160 in 10,000 cases) according to Medscape⁽¹⁾. But that figure seems overblown when you consider how many cases have been reported over the last couple of years:

• Ireland reported 848 between January and March 2009.
• The island of Angelsey, off the coast of Wales, with a population of under 70,000, reported 28 cases in 2008.
• Brooklyn, New York, with a population under 2.5 million, reported a recent outbreak of 57 cases.
• Lancaster University in the UK recently reported an outbreak of 39 cases.
• Northeast Lincolnshire, UK, with a population under 160,000, reported 43 cases in the first half of 2009.
• Palestinian refugee camps have reported an average of 11 cases per 1,000 people from December 2003 to June 2005.
• Two universities in Sheffield, England, reported 290 cases during the first four months of 2009.

Numbers like these make it clear that there have been thousands of cases of mumps over the last few years, most likely tens of thousands. Where are the reports of deaths? And where did that 1.6% death rate from mumps come from?

Vaccination Not a Viable Protection Against Mumps

Estimates of the number of people vaccinated against mumps varies from around 80 to 95 percent. Yet, everywhere that mumps is being reported, the number of vaccinated people with mumps is at least half the total, and often significantly more.

Blaming the Unvaccinated

The standard refrain is that the unvaccinated are to blame for the mumps outbreaks. There's little to comment on here, other than to point out the obvious absurdity of it. If the vaccinations don't prevent the disease, then why get vaccinated?

Ramping Up the Fear of Complications from Mumps

Mumps complications can be serious, though the claims clearly outstrip the reality. Especially hyped are the cases of hospitalization for orchitis, inflammation of the testicles. Though certainly not a pleasant experience, the numbers are quite low—far below the NHS's claim of "up to 25% of post-pubertal males"⁽²⁾. Note that the words used are rather weasily. "Up to"? What, exactly, does that really mean? 0.1% is "up to" 25%

The NHS also states that oophritis (inflammation of the ovaries) occurs in post-pubertal females. The agency does noted that "sterility is rare" in both men and women. They claim that aseptic meningitis, a truly fearful disease, occurs in 10% of cases, without further complications. Pancreatitis, neuritis, arthritis, mastitis, nephritis, thyroiditis, and pericarditis may also occur, according to the NHS, though the frequency is not noted.

Yet, where are the reports of these complications? Surely there have been more than enough mumps cases to produce a few. Other than a small number of orchitis hospitalizations, without any resulting in sterility, there don't seem to be any. Perhaps there are—but it's a tad hard to believe with all the scare mongering going on.

Certainly, the possibility of these complications exists. However, the reality of their frequency appears to be vanishingly small compared to the claims.