Tl;dr - just because there were 108 deaths shortly after a vaccination at the miniscule rate of 10 per year does not mean there were 108 deaths caused by the vaccinations. Almost none were definitively caused by the measles vaccination.
OK, so I had a look at the article and ran a similar query, covering deaths after all types of measles vaccinations for 2004 to 2013, it returned 106 results rather than the 108 they quote.
Apart from the fact that 10 deaths a year is nothing, presumably a 10 year search was used to get the numbers up, lets have a detailed look at some of these, heck lets look at them all or until I get bored……
Well, I got bored after typing 21 summaries but I read all 106 case reports which is a heck of a lot more than the “researchers” at “Vaccine Impact” seem to have done. Most received multiple vaccinations so not just for measles; in some cases the other vaccines were implicated, in some clearly the measles vaccine was implicated but in most, even where you could say the vaccination was probably the cause of death which component was the cause was impossible to say.
It is worth noting that not all of these were even in the USA so it is impossible to say what the population base is here which makes the number even more meaningless. I would, however, accept the point that the reporting physician has to suspect a link with the vaccination and reporting is voluntary so there is probably significant under-reporting of deaths which are temporally related to vaccination (not necessarily causally).
A good few were co-incidental infections, usually pneumonia, a few were due to seizures - well kids can have seizures if they have a high temperature and vaccination might make them run a fever. Vaccination fevers are usually mild and short lived - unlike the natural infection - so there is probably much more risk from not being vaccinated. A few were sudden infant death, very hard to know if the preceding vaccination had anything to do with the individual case. Statistical analysis might help but the numbers here are probably too small to get much from a cohort study.
A few - very small numbers - died from viral infections traceable to the attenuated virus in the vaccine, some of these were immunocompromised individuals. There were also small numbers that looked like anaphylaxis.
Some were obviously related to pre-existing, usually severe health problems, an odd one or two were clear inappropriate vaccinations (the known immunocompromised individuals) a couple were other types of co-incidental illnesses (eg lukaemia), one even an abortion in a 27 year old who recieved vaccination before realising that she was pregnant, and some did not have enough information to comment (in a couple of cases these were unverified 2nd hand reports).
I didn’t count but maybe 1/3 of these could reasonably be blamed on the vaccination, usually because of febrile seizures and I’ll lay money the chance of death due to a febrile seizure after vaccination in a susceptible individual is tiny compared with the same individuals chance of the same mode of death from natural infection. Noting that, in all of these cases, multiple vaccinations were given it is impossible to specifically blame the measles component.
It’s hardly the stuff of scandal, is it?
For those who have got this far in a very long post and still have the stamina here are the first 21 summarised:
The 1st (in fact the one visible on the page that Helen links to) was a toddler with congenital heart defects who died 3 hours post vaccination with septic shock and positive blood cultures for strep. pnumoniae. I.e he died of a chest infection, nothing to do with the vaccine.
2nd a toddler with severe congenital heart defects (as well as other congenital problems) died the day following immunisation of a cardiac arrest, almost certainly due to his heart problems
3rd Toddler with congenital heart defects and DiGeorge syndrome (which causes immunodeficiency). Died of heart failure following vaccination. With the caveat that I only glanced at this one this looks like a medical error - he should not have received a live vaccine. That said it could just as easily have been a natural infection.
4th 4y old with no medical history died of a viral meningitis one month after vaccination, not connected with his vaccination (Epstein Barr virus isolated).
5th toddler died 2 days post vaccination - SIDS, hard to pin that one on the vaccine without extensive statistical study.
6th toddler, 2 days post vaccination SIDS (as above re connection)
7th toddler 6 days post vaccination. Cause not given but looks like SIDS
8th 2y old pre-term with a non-specified immune disorder died 8 days post vaccination from bronchopneumonia, possibly he should not have been given a live vaccine, hard to tell from the report.
9th toddler, died 2 days post vaccination from pneumonia.
10th toddler 1 day post vaccination. Impossible to tell from the report - allergy to the vaccine or pneumonia
11th 20y old (probably in forces), 7 days post vaccination from chronic myocarditis.
12th toddler 5 days post vaccination SIDS
13th toddler with congenttal problems died 25 days post vaccination from congenital encephalopathy & respiratory failure
14th toddler 16 days post vaccination from disseminated varicalla infection (VARIVAX had been administered) so this does appear to be the rare death that was due to the vaccine - but lets not forget that natural infection does this at a much higher rate.
15th toddler with congenital and developmental problems died 24 hours post vac. The reporting physician did feel in this case that it was an immunization reaction.
16th toddler, no medical history, died from febrile convulsions 6 days post vaccination. Hard to call given time frame.
17th 43 year old died of cardiac arrest immediately post vaccination. Don’t have enough information, possibly anaphylaxis.
18th toddler died 15 hours post vaccination having experienced a febrile seizure although the cause was given as respiratory failure because of sedation used to control the seizure.
19th toddler 11 days post vaccination found unresponsive & face down on mattress - no cause found
20th toddler died 2 days post vaccination of pneumonia.
21st toddler died 11 days post vaccination of unrelated myocarditis
Link to the full search results: https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?EVENTS=ON&VAX[]=MEA&VAX[]=MER&VAX[]=MM&VAX[]=MMR&VAX[]=MMRV&VAXTYPES[]=Measles&DIED=Yes&VAX_YEAR_LOW=2004&VAX_MONTH_LOW=01&VAX_YEAR_HIGH=2013&VAX_MONTH_HIGH=12
…a bit like the eye-witnesses who each give a different description of the “baddie”.