By Ignacio Sabate & Derek K Choi |Harvard Crimson

Harvard University Health Services Director Paul J. Barreira said he was “more concerned now” about the spread of mumps on campus than at any other point during the outbreak, worrying that a recent spike in the number of confirmed cases could adversely affect Commencement.

As of Monday there were 40 confirmed cases of mumps at Harvard and slightly less than a dozen students currently in isolation, according to Lindsey Baker, a spokesperson for HUHS. In an email sent to undergraduates Friday, Barreira indicated that there had been 34 cases of mumps at the time.

“I’m actually more concerned now than I was during any time of the outbreak, I have to say,” Barreira said. “I’m desperate, I’m desperate to get students to take seriously that they shouldn’t be infecting one another.”

The rapid spread of mumps could affect Commencement and other end-of-the-semester activities if more individuals become exposed to the virus, Barreira said.

“The concern is that if there’s a spike this week, that means those students expose others, so now we’re looking at a potential serious interruption to Commencement for students,” Barreira said. “Students will get infected, and then go into isolation.”

Mumps, a viral illness that affects the salivary glands, is generally considered rare. Incoming freshmen are required to have received the MMRV vaccination, a vaccine commonly used to prevent the incidence of mumps.

Barreira said at one point after spring break, there were only two cases of mumps at Harvard and no students in isolation. “[T]hen all of a sudden we had 11 in isolation,” he said.

Per Harvard policy, students who have tested positive for mumps must be isolated from other people for a period of five days. Currently, students with the virus are isolated in either the Harvard Inn or students’ own homes, if they live nearby.

Barreira notified students of the first confirmed case of mumps on March 1. Since then, that number has steadily increased, and College administrators warned students traveling during spring break to practice good hygiene and avoid public transportation if they worried they may have been in contact with mumps. In March, nearby colleges such as Tufts University and Boston University reported having confirmed cases of mumps on their campuses. Colleges across the country, such as the University of Dayton, Miami University, and Indiana University have also reported confirmed cases of mumps.

Before spring break, Harvard had isolated students with mumps at the Harvard Inn without notifying other residents—primarily visiting students—because of the University’s policy of protecting patient privacy. Once students were alerted that individuals with the virus were in the same building, they raised concerns over transparency in communication.

Barreira said the increase in incidence of mumps on Harvard’s campus can be attributed to students taking inadequate precautions.

“Students are not acting in a responsible way, knowingly exposing other students to the virus,” Barreira said. “It’s both disappointing and frustrating because I thought we were on the decline.”

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE…

Editor's Note:

Merck is accused of stonewalling in mumps vaccine antitrust lawsuit

https://www.reuters(dot)com/article/health-vaccine-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604

Judge: Lawsuit Against Merck’s MMR Vaccine Fraud to Continue:

https://healthimpactnews(dot)com/2014/judge-lawsuit-against-mercks-mmr-vaccine-fraud-to-continue/.

Memorandum issued by Judge explaining his ruling.

https://www.rescuepost(dot)com/files/59-opinion.pdf

According to Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, both former Merck

virologists, the Merck company engaged in all the following behavior:

• Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test results to fabricate a “95% efficacy rate.”

• In order to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in CourthouseNews(dot)com:

Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable

test results, though it knew that the human immune system would never

produce such antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory

testing scenario that “did not in any way correspond to, correlate with,

or represent real life … virus neutralization in vaccinated people,”

according to the complaint. (https://www.courthousenews(dot)com/2012/06/27/478…)

False Claims Act document: https://www.naturalnews(dot)com/gallery/documents/Merck-False-Claims-Act.pdf.

Chatom Primary Care is also suing Merck for Sherman Act monopolization, breach of warranty, violation of consumer protection laws: https://www.naturalnews(dot)com/gallery/documents/Chatom-Lawsuit-Merck-Mumps.pdf.

The suit alleges, among other shocking things:

-[Merck engaged in] …a decade-long scheme to falsify and misrepresent the true efficacy of its vaccine.

-Merck fraudulently represented and continues to falsely represent in its

labeling and elsewhere that its Mumps Vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95

percent of higher.

-Merck designed a testing methodology that evaluated its vaccine against a less virulent strain of the mumps virus. After the results failed to yield Merck's desired efficacy, Merck abandoned the methodology and concealed the study's findings.

…incorporating the use of animal antibodies to artificially inflate the results…

…destroying evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator…

…threatened a virologist in Merck's vaccine division with jail if he reported the fraud to the FDA…

…the ultimate victims here are the millions of children who every year are being injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level of protection. And while this is a disease that, according to the Centers for Disease Control (‘CDC'), was supposed to be eradicated by now, the failure in

Merck's vaccine has allowed this disease to linger, with significant outbreaks continuing to occur.

Live Mumps Vaccine Virus Infection Occurs:

People vaccinated with the vaccine are contagious and they can be asymptomatic. It doesn't matter if the virus is attenuated, there are plenty of studies that the CDC is aware of the demonstrates attenuated viruses can regain their virulence.

-CDC. Mumps. The Pink Book, 12thEdition (2012)

-Alrasheuskaya AV, Neverov AA, Rubin S, Ignatyev GM.

Horizontal transmission of the Leningrad-3 live attenuated mumps vaccine virus.

Vaccine 2006; 24(1): 1530-1536.

-Transmission of the L-Zagreb mumps vaccine virus, Croatia, 2005-2008

B Kaic ()1, I Gjenero-Margan1, B Aleraj1, S Ljubin-Sternak2, T Vilibić-Čavlek2, S Kilvain3, I Pavic4, D Stojanovic5, A Ilic6

-Pediatr Infect Dis J. 1991 Mar;10(3):209-13.

Aseptic meningitis as a complication of mumps vaccination.

Sugiura A1, Yamada A.

I haven't read on any of the articles coming out of Harvard as to what Mumps strain is circulating because that will reveal if it is indeed a vaccine strain which would mean the vaccine, doesn't work and people injected with it are infecting others even if they themselves show no sign of being sick.