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<p dir="auto">On Zoom last Friday Nick asked for more information about an assertion I made that measles erases<br>
immunity memory. This is from an email my daughter sent to me and my college roommates (and spouses and offspring). If you need a reference to the literature, I can probably get one from my daughter, but with what I’m copying here, you would probably find find some with Google.</p>
<p dir="auto">After that is a link to an academic lecture on why a Covid-19 vaccine is “easy” when compared to other vaccines. What’s not so easy is compressing 5 to 20 years of effort into one year. That part of the discussion starts about at 9:20.</p>
<p dir="auto"><em>Measles story. I share this with my class to give my students a counterargument to anti-vaccine people who believe a "natural" infection is better than vaccination, because, it's natural. The measles vaccine was integrated into the childhood vaccine schedule at different times around the world (1960's - 1980's). In every country, after the vaccine was introduced child deaths from *all causes</em> fell drastically. No one knew why - suggestions were that it corresponded with better medical care, etc. In 2015, it was shown that one of the cells that measles infects (and kills) are memory B cells - the cells that make antibodies to all of the pathogens you've seen before. They are wiped out in measles. After a child has had measles, they become susceptible again to every disease that they've already been exposed to - the immune system is essentially reset. It was known that you get major immune suppression for a few weeks during a measles infection, but this study showed that immune memory doesn't bounce back once you recover. This is why measles vaccination protects children from dying of not just measles, but many common infectious diseases. Not all pathogens kill immune cells like that, but most throw a wrench in the works one way or another.*</p>
<p dir="auto"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUuLDLY1wMU&feature=youtu.be&t=304" style="color:#3983C4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUuLDLY1wMU&feature=youtu.be&t=304</a> 9:20</p>
<p dir="auto">— Barry</p>
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