13/10/2026
Something you may not have known about Measles.
Worth considering.
Measles, once all but eradicated in the U.S., has come surging back -- and with it, a lot of attention to the dangers of the infection itself: the raging fevers, the hospitalizations, the deaths. But far fewer people know about measles "immune amnesia," a lesser-known consequence that researchers have found affects everyone who gets measles -- in some children wiping out over 70 percent of the disease-fighting history their bodies had built up over a lifetime.
It works like this: over a lifetime, your immune system builds a library of antibodies against the germs you've encountered -- every cold, every stomach bug -- and the vaccines you've received. Measles doesn't just make you sick; it can erase much of that library. As Dr. Trisha Pasricha explains: "Think about it: all those years of stomach bugs and colds, and within weeks, your immune system forgets how to defend against them."
The result is that a child who recovers from measles can be left vulnerable, for years afterward, to illnesses they'd already beaten. It is part of what makes measles so deadly: because the infection leaves the immune system so weakened, many children who die after getting measles die not of measles itself, but of other infections it has left them defenseless against -- pneumonia above all, the leading cause of death in young children with the disease.
Just how deadly this knock-on effect can be came into focus in a 2015 study: analyzing decades of data from before the vaccine existed, researchers found that measles may have been implicated in as many as half of all childhood deaths from infectious disease -- because for two to three years after a measles outbreak, deaths from other infections rose, too. When the measles vaccine arrived, those other deaths fell along with it. It is one more reason the measles vaccine protects against far more than measles alone.
Children vaccinated against measles suffer none of this. The MMR vaccine gives them immunity without any of the immune memory loss -- no lost antibodies, no immune amnesia, no years of heightened vulnerability that follow. It's not just protection against measles, but against all the infections measles would otherwise leave a child defenseless against.
--> To read more about measles immune amnesia, visit https://wapo.st/3VEccw4
--> To watch a short video from Dr. Trisha Pasricha about measles amnesia, visit https://www.facebook.com/reel/2304856863637902
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To introduce kids to what used to be another common childhood disease prior to vaccinations, polio, we highly recommend the books "Blue" (https://www.amightygirl.com/blue) and "Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio" (https://www.amightygirl.com/small-steps), both for ages 9 and up
Every vaccine began with a scientist determined to stop a disease. For a picture book that celebrates that spirit -- about a young rabbit who sets out to cure a mysterious illness in her forest -- we recommend "Charlotte the Scientist Finds a Cure" for ages 4 to 8 at https://www.amightygirl.com/charlotte-the-scientist-finds-a-cure"
To introduce children to trailblazing women of public health, we highly recommend "Dr. Jo: How Sara Josephine Baker Saved the Lives of America's Children" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/dr-jo) and "Never Give Up: Dr. Kati Karikó and the Race for the Future of Vaccines" for ages 6 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/never-give-up)
