Today I Learned

I have a cousin who got measles as a kid. She was around 7 I guess. She’s in her 50s now.

She has been totally dependent on her mom and her siblings since. It totally fried her brain. She’s very sweet and everyone likes her, but she was nearly erased.

People ask her any question and can lead her to any answer. “Hey Sheila, I heard you had a million dollars in the bank and you were gonna give me half of it.”

“Yeah, I have a million over at the bank and I’m going to give you half. Mommy will ride us over there and and we go get it. Yeah.”

“Hey Sheila, I was told that you’re pregnant and the baby is coming tomorrow.”

“Yeah I have a baby, it comes tomorrow. I name it Princess. Yeah.”

I mean you can get her to say anything. She won’t cuss though, not directly anyway.

“Sheila, Bobby told me that you said fuck ass this morning.”

“Nooooo. I don’t cuss. I don’t say fuck ass. Them is bad words. Yeah.”

It’s like she’s a little kid but less her own person. She was a bright kid before measles. It sucks because the only reason she wasn’t vaccinated is because she came from the poorest part of WV. There were no doctors where she grew up. Her older siblings had been vaccinated through some measure to vaccinate rural communities. She just missed it by being born too late. Her mom hates herself for it, but she just didn’t take it too seriously until she had to. Her mom is in her 80s now and still taking care of her. She’s a tough woman, still working 45 hours a week. Once she’s gone I’m sure her older sister will care for her.

It blows my mind that there are people don’t take diseases seriously out there in the world.

Yeah, measles are fucking dangerous. They enter through the lungs (or sometimes the eyes), infect cells there and get replicated. They then get scooped up by immune cells called macrophages (part of the generalized immune system, which can react instantly, but can only deal with the "easy" stuff).

Normally this destroys the virus and parts of the pathogen get then transported into the lymph nodes as samples to produce antibodies against (which are needed as targets for the adaptive immune system) . Instead measles jump out of the macrophages and infect the T-cells (one of those 7 types of T-cells are the memory cells, which are "veterans" of previous infections and get reactivated when the same virus pops up again, instantly providing the info which antibody is needed).

The memory cells get wrecked, and with that any immunities you had before AND the ability to produce antibodies for anything. you are immunosuppressed for about 2 years.

There was a study which linked a previous measles infection with about 90% of all illness-related child deaths in third world countries, and is suspected to have caused more deaths in the first world with the damage to the immune system than through measles themselves.

also, if you are very unlucky, you can slowly die years after the measles infection, being sick for about 3 years - it's called SSPE, and it has a 95% lethality rate, and the 5% normally have massive brain damage.

i studied molecular biology (and had to abort my studies about 2 semesters before getting my Bachelor), and the virology courses were fascinating and horrifying at the same time. antivaxxers are uninformed, stupid people, and deserve to experience the same suffering they cause in their children and in society in general.

One of my family members was immune to the vaccine, and couldn't achieve the required percentage of it to actively fight off the measels. So doctors told his parents to have him avoid any large gathering that they could (fairs, pools, etc). So until he was finally able to get his vaccine % above (I don't remember the number) he didn't get to go to those things, and it was because there was an anti-vaxx group in his area. So this poor kid had two options: Risk the terrifying symptoms and side effects you mentioned, and be social, or never go to those events to make sure he doesn't, you know, die.

Fuck those other parents, selfish fucking cruel anti-vaxx morons.

Great. Just more fuels for my nightmares.

Thank fuck my parents weren't dipshits when I was a child

Even better, as we saw with the outbreaks in Samoa, literally watching people die of it in an epidemic won't convince them that they're wrong.

Time to read up on measles and do what you can to protect yourself. Maybe do polio too while you're out it.

It’s worth reading up on measles. In fact, none of the childhood vaccines are for anything insignificant, they’re all interesting reads. Salk’s story is also worthwhile.

It can also cause permanent brain damage

Yes, which is why it's so very dangerous and people refusing the vaccine and having fucking measles parties for their kids are dangers to society.

It's insane that people are not vaccinating their children against a threat like this.

If your physician pushes back on providing a measles booster - mine did because we aren’t having a local outbreak currently - you can get an MMR vaccine (as well as most any other vaccine in production) at any travel vaccine center.

People should vaccinate and daycares should have the option to ban kids. Yes it can then transfer at school, but there is no good alternative for that.

Nows the perfect time to introduce raw milk into their diet!

So could measles cure my allergies? All other bad things set aside.

Something boomers did better than GenX/Y