Scientists Crack A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine

[groundloop]

Source: NPR

Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.
But something else happened. Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half.....

"In some developing countries, where infectious diseases are very high, the reduction in mortality has been up to 80 percent," says Michael Mina, a postdoc in biology at Princeton University and a medical student at Emory University........

Like many viruses, measles is known to suppress the immune system for a few weeks after an infection. But previous studies in monkeys have suggested that measles takes this suppression to a whole new level: It erases immune protection to other diseases, Mina says.

So what does that mean? Well, say you get the chicken pox when you're 4 years old. Your immune system figures out how to fight it. So you don't get it again. But if you get measles when you're 5 years old, it could wipe out the memory of how to beat back the chicken pox. It's like the immune system has amnesia, Mina says.



Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/05/07/404963436/scientists-crack-a-50-year-old-mystery-about-the-measles-vaccine

---

Very interesting research.

[DawgHouse]

1. This is interesting!

[hedgehog]

2. Kickety kick

[phantom power]

3. very very interesting result

[longship]

4. One hopes Stephanie Messenger reads this.

Author of Melanie's Marvelous Measles, the lunatic anti-vaccine children's book about how wonderful it is that children should absolutely love contracting measles.

And then there's the idiot Jenny McCarthy who made her name on MTV by eating her boogers.

R&K for some interesting science here.

[erronis]

6. Actually, I hope Messanger and her spawn DON'T read this

With any luck and God's will, they should die off.

[LeftishBrit]

7. No - not fair on her children...

or on that child on chemo, or baby too young to be vaccinated, who is then infected by them.

[erronis]

8. Of course you're right.

Even her children and other descendents with her inherited genetic aberrations don't deserve to suffer for one crazy ancestor.

This is just a random daydream that occurs to me when I think of other people with a noted inability to think logically.

Just as a silly non-real example: What if there was some epigenetic mutation that caused all 2nd generation onward children of a certain cretinous US leader to not be able to bear progeny?

[awoke_in_2003]

15. One quibble

She made her name showing the world her boobs. That is not someone I would take medical advice from

[longship]

16. Well, I think she did both.

But when one has a choice of ad hominem criticisms I think boogers trumps boobs.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. I don't know...

I kind of like boobs

[KamaAina]

5. Okay, NOW can you get your kids vaccinated?

[LibertyLover]

9. That's fascinating -

I know they say in the article that the immune system comes back, sort of, but I wonder if that might be one reason why older individuals get shingles - because they had chicken pox first and then measles and the measles virus, as they say, wipes out the memory of the body having chicken pox. I'm glad that I had the shingles vaccination when I turned 60 a year or so ago.

[olegramps]

10. Its not foolproof, but it reduces the chance of an outbreak and severity if it does.

[LibertyLover]

14. One of my aunts had shingles

and anything that can reduce the chance of getting it is better than nothing!

[SusanCalvin]

19. That was exactly my first thought.

I think I *did* get measles after chicken pox, and I got shingles in my 50s.

It was not pleasant, but a drug called neurontin helped a *lot*. I think it was off-label at the time, but I see that WebMD now lists it as a treatment for shingles pain.

[ananda]

11. Very interesting.

I got measles and chicken pox in fairly quick succession when I was 7, but I don't remember what order.

The measles was fairly mild. I got the rash but didn't feel sick. I was out playing in the backyard with it since I couldn't go to school with symptoms; and there were no residual effects that I know of.

However, my younger sister got sleeping sickness, some sort of encephalitis maybe, on the back of the measles. I remember her lying round sleeping for a few weeks till she finally got better.

I don't remember any of us having any other problems with measles.

But since measles can kill and suppress the immune system, I definitely think children should get the vaccination. Better to be safe than sorry.

[Orrex]

12. But vaccines cause Jenny McCarthy to be RFK Jr.

[longship]

18. DUzy! nt

[Hekate]

13. That's fascinating. Thanks for the post and link. KnR

[Gormy Cuss]

20. Yes, very interesting.

I wish that I could find the whole study report in front of a paywall.

[Recursion]

21. That'a fascinating. Thanks (nt)