Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Actually I don’t care why someone is “vaccine hesitant.” Go live away from others if you don’t want to get vaccines. Homeschool the kids, grow your own crops. That’s fine. But if you want to go to public school or fly on planes or go to hospitals or go shopping in person or be in the presence of others, you need to be a team member, part of which is getting vaccinated against highly transmissible, lethal diseases.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
PS: Because if that's what you want, why not offer it yourself, if you think you understand it? Or why not ask the people who, you know, actually hold the belief and would be in the best possible position of giving a good faith argument (if it is possible)?

I tried to answer, but it got deleted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Anonymous wrote:
PS: Because if that's what you want, why not offer it yourself, if you think you understand it? Or why not ask the people who, you know, actually hold the belief and would be in the best possible position of giving a good faith argument (if it is possible)?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl