The disease has the ability to wipe out prior immunizations so you might think you’re protected from whooping cough, for example, because you’ve been vaccinated but measles can erase that immunity. Parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated are setting them up for lifetime health risks.
“Measles is among the most contagious viruses known. A single case can cause dozens more in places where people are unvaccinated. Infants too young for vaccination, immune-compromised people and the elderly are all at risk. Measles isn’t just a fever and rash. It can cause pneumonia, brain inflammation, permanent disability and death. The virus can go dormant in the body only to re-emerge a decade or so after infection and cause rapid and fatal brain tissue deterioration.
It also has a more insidious legacy, one I helped discover. In 2015, I led a team that found that measles can erase the immune system’s protective memory of prior infections. This “immune amnesia,” as it’s called, leaves people vulnerable to viruses and bacteria they were once protected against. In a follow-up study in 2019, we found measles can wipe out up to 70 percent of an individual’s protective immune memory.
This means that people who get measles now may be at increased risk of infection by essentially all other pathogens that they would otherwise be well protected against. After measles, these individuals have to embark on a yearslong and risk-filled recovery of re-infections and exposures to build back up the protective shields they previously had.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/opinion/measles-epidemic-texas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8k4.VKVh.hlLYv7oqpLCX&smid=url-share
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