Have you had measles?

April 27, 2025 Check out STAT+

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By Torie Bosch First Opinion editor

I just got the chickenpox vaccine, the second in the series. With both shots, six weeks apart, the person administering them seemed a little confused, asking if I needed them for work or immigration purposes. The real reason: Earlier this year, I got my titers for measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox checked before a trip to Texas, because at the time my now-1-year-old had not yet had her MMR shots and, well, I was a little paranoid. Turned out that my measles and rubella immunity were going strong, but my mumps immunity was low and my chickenpox immunity was a big fat zero. (I never had it as a kid and was jut a little old for the vaccine.) So I got an MMR booster and the two chickenpox shots. No shingles for me! I mention this because I have also been working on a small project to collect people's experiences with diseases that have largely disappeared because they are vaccine-preventable. I've heard from people who had measles, whooping cough, and a couple of others, but I need more — both more stories about those diseases, to capture a range of experiences, and stories about more experiences. Have you had measles? Polio? HPV? The mumps? Hepatitis B? I want to hear about it, whether you acquired it because it was before a vaccine existed, you never received it for some reason, or it wasn't effective for you. Email me a paragraph or two about it: first.opinion@statnews.com. And please share this widely! Recommendation of the week: Now that spring is officially here, I'm taking as many calls as I can while going for a walk. Down with one-on-one Zooms!

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