The HEW reported in 1970 that as much as 26 percent of children receiving rubella vaccination, in national testing programs, developed arthalgia or arthritis. Many had to seek medical attention and some were hospitalised to test for rheumatic fever and rheumatoid arthritis. As with mumps the incidence of rubella has shifted to older age groups since the widespread vaccinations for rubella. During the period between 1966 and 1968, twenty-three percent of rubella cases occurred among persons 15 years or over. In 1987 this same age group accounted for 48 percent of cases.
Rubella is a mild childhood disease which requires no treatment.
However, a woman who contracts rubella during the first 3 months of pregnancy risks abortion, miscarriage, or birth defects in her child. This vaccine has been shown to cause serious reactions including convulsions, anaphylactoid allergic reactions, serum sickness-like reactions and death. A case-control study has shown that 41 percent of meningitis occurred in children vaccinated against the disease. This means that children are much more likely to get the disease if they are vaccinated. Current childcare practices, specifically our tendency to institutionalise children too early, have given rise to epidemics of the form of meningitis that the Hib vaccine purports to protect against.