With all the news of vaccines & immunity, did you know measles infections destroy immunity and cause “Immune Amnesia”, increasing risk of all other infections
Our research in ‘15 & ‘19 discovered this & the abbreviated story is written up nicely here:
In 2015, along w Bryan Grenfell and colleagues, we discovered an exceptionally strong relationship between measles epidemics and all cause childhood mortality - following outbreaks of measles, child mortality was increased for 2-3 years.
We hypothesized then that measles was destroying B cells and plasma cells responsible for retaining immune memory. This is bc the measles virus specifically attacks immune memory cells via attachment to CD150 - a protein enriched on memory cells.
A few years later, with @RLdeSwart (involved w 1st studies too and who coined the term immune amnesia) and Steve Elledge and colleagues, we followed up by profiling the immunological memory in kids before and after they were infected w measles.
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We used VirScan (developed in Elledge’s lab) to monitor 100,000’s of antibodies in children who were naturally infected w measles and, w Diane Griffin at Hopkins, experimentally infected macaque primates.
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We found that measles eraaed up to 80% of people’s existing antibody repertoire (Immune Amnesia confirmed) and that they then had to build it back through vaccines or infections - placing them at high risk for disease for years.
Thus, through a combination of mathematics, ecological modeling, and advanced immunological techniques we were able to discover that by erasing immune memory, measles once was partially responsible for ~50% of childhood infectious disease deaths.
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Because measles used to infect >99% of humans, this makes the humble measles vaccine perhaps the most important vaccine ever to be developed as it has reduced infections from all other pathogens.
Biology never ceases to amaze!
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Here’s another (of many) news reports of the findings.
Each reporter found different approaches to write it up. Some quite creative. This one in @NPR describes it well.
Joseph Hibbeln MD has long researched and advocated for optimizing nutrition, including studying things like seafood consumption in pregnancy and role of mercury consumption and whether it is linked to autism. Generally he’s come out saying it’s not.
Summary: No evidence of anti science or anti vaccine. Likely very balanced and nuanced rigorous scientist to serve on ACIP.
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Cody Meissner MD
Is a pediatric infectious disease expert at my Alma mater - Dartmouth. He is a rigorous scientist and has defended vaccines while formally recognizing underlying issues that are causing people to turn away from them - such as vaccine success driving down disease - affording people the luxury of focusing on very rare side effects while forgetting the real impacts of the diseases.
One of the most common tropes is that measles is fine & doesn’t cause damage…
This is highly inaccurate
Measles literally grows by infecting and killing memory immune cells. It causes loss to existing immunity creating vulnerabilities & acute damage that is often severe
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To discover the massive-stealth-impact measles has on immune protection against infections not associated w measles, we looked at what happened in populations after measles outbreaks swept through, decade after decade across nations…