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Roald Dahl’s letter about his 7-yr-old dying from measles is a must read for our time

The children’s book author doesn’t mince words.

Carl Van Vechten/Public Domain (left), Photo credit: Canva (right)

Roald Dahl's daughter contracted measles the year before the vaccine was invented.

On February 26, 2025, officials announced that a child in Texas had died of measles, becoming the first death from the disease in the U.S. in a decade. A local outbreak among unvaccinated people highlights the dangers of anti-vaccine sentiment that has affected vaccine rates and opened the door to a highly infectious disease that was considered eliminated in the U.S. in 2000.

A century ago, before the measles vaccine was developed and distributed, measles was a common childhood disease that nearly everyone caught at some point. But it wasn't harmless. Of the 3 to 4 million cases per year, 48,000 people were hospitalized and 400 to 500 people died. According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the disease itself is dangerous and can also lead to pneumonia, encephalitis, brain damage, and other health problems.

Children's author Roald Dahl lost his 7-year-old daughter Olivia to measles-induced encephalitis in 1962, the year before the measles vaccine was invented. Over two decades later, he wrote a heart wrenching letter about her death, encouraging people to vaccinate their children to avoid that now-preventable tragedy.

Author Roald Dahl in 1954, before his daughter Olivia was born.Carl Van Vechten/Public Domain

He wrote:

"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 12 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 24 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.

measles rash Measles often causes a skin rash in addition to flu-like symptoms.Photo credit: Canva

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 immunised against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness.

Believe me, it is. In my opinion, parents who now refuse to have their children immunised are putting the lives of those children at risk…It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunised."

one of Roald Dahl's drawings of the Big Friendly Giant holding a little girl. Tech, Science, & Innovationwww.facebook.com

Dahl wrote his letter to parents in the United Kingdom in 1988, but it's just as relevant today. While some parents worry about the side effects of vaccines and rumors about the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine being linked to autism, studies have shown that there is no evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism and according to Johns Hopkins, "Measles is a dangerous disease and the vaccine is very safe. The risks of severe illness, death, or lifelong complications from measles infection far outweigh the generally mild side effects some people experience following vaccination. Serious reactions to the MMR vaccine are rare." There is still no cure for measles or measles encephalitis.

Dahl dedicated two of his books to Olivia: James and the Giant Peach when she was still alive and The BFG after her death. Though his books have long been controversial and his legacy has been marred by antisemitism and racism that his family felt the need to formally apologize for, Dahl was right about vaccines. His experience losing his daughter serves as a cautionary tale for those who may be tempted to take the drastic reduction in infectious diseases due to vaccines for granted.

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The measles outbreak has hit New York City. Literature targeting Orthodox Jews is behind it.

The first major measles outbreak in New York State this year may have started in upstate New York, but it’s officially reached the epicenter — New York City.

For several months, officials in New York City have been encouraging members of ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the Brooklyn area of New York City to vaccinate their children in an attempt to squash the rapidly growing number of measles cases in the region. In addition to providing education about the vaccine and talking to local rabbis, they have also tried keeping unvaccinated children from attending school.

Despite those efforts, there have been 285 confirmed cases of the infection since September with 21 of them leading to hospitalization. It’s the largest measles outbreak the city has seen in over three decades. So this week, officials took a more staunch approach — Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency.

As part of the increased efforts to eradicate the outbreak, the mayor announced that those who refuse to comply with the required vaccinations will face some legal consequences: violations will be issued, and some may incur fines of up to $1,000. As of today, the order targets four zip codes where the outbreak seems to be centralized.

Some individuals claim that vaccinations go against their religion, and the order is unconstitutional. That, however, isn’t deterring Mayor de Blasio from towing a hard line in this worrisome situation.

Unvaccinated children in the zip codes of 11205, 11206, 11211 and 11249 may not return to school or daycare for the… https://t.co/J0Cmc7AJqy
— Mayor Eric Adams (@Mayor Eric Adams) 1554856472

“This is the epicenter of a measles outbreak that is very, very troubling and must be dealt with immediately,” de Blasio said during a press conference. “The measles vaccine works. It is safe, it is effective, it is time-tested.”

Health officials claim they won’t randomly perform spot checks on students as part of the enforcement. Instead, if a new case of measles is detected, they will look into the vaccination records of all individuals in contact with the infected person. They hope this stringency along with the imposed fines will encourage more people to get vaccinated.

While the outbreak is scary, the entire Orthodox community isn’t to blame. Only a small percentage Orthodox Jews in the area are against vaccinations.

According to the New York Times, most religious leaders in the community do not back anti-vaccination beliefs. Instead, they have been perpetuated by a grassroots movement that may have started with the distribution of a propaganda handbook created by a group called Parents Educating and Advocating for Children’s Health (Peach). The handbook makes many false claims about vaccines, saying they cause autism, contain cells from aborted human fetuses and defy the Kosher diet.

“Vaccines contain monkey, rat and pig DNA as well as cow-serum blood, all of which are forbidden for consumption according to kosher dietary law,” Moishe Kahan, a contributing editor for Peach magazine, reportedly said in an email.

Despite the fact that most prominent rabbis maintain vaccines are Kosher, the literature seems to have still swayed a number of families.

The Times interviewed several rabbis and Jewish medical experts who attest to this, maintaining they have been working hard to educate and influence the people in their community who refuse vaccinations.

However, as has been seen in other areas of the country where measles outbreaks have occurred, those who are anti-vaccination aren’t quick to drop their beliefs. And the required vaccination mandate seems to have made them dig their heels in deeper.

“I don’t think it’s up to the city to mandate anything. We all have constitutional rights,” a mother-of-five who identified herself as Gitty, told the Times. She added that she refused to vaccinate any of her kids, referring to the act as “a medical procedure by force.” She added: “We are marginalized. Every minority that has a different opinion is marginalized.”

Another woman, whose interview outside of the mayor’s press conference was posted on Twitter, called the act “unethical,” maintaining the government has no right to force her to inject her children with medicine.

Outside mayor’s press conference on measles outbreak, this mom questioned the science of vaccines and called mandat… https://t.co/ywov3vZwQJ
— Yoav Gonen (@Yoav Gonen) 1554826248

“This is my religious belief,” her friend, featured in a separate video interview, explained. “It comes along with whatever it comes along and we deal with whatever comes along with and I think I chose the better part of it, because my kids have measles for life,” she exclaimed.

There are even claims that “measles parties” are being held in the community, in order to expose children so that they can build up immunity and antibodies.

Spreading a potentially deadly disease to other people shouldn’t be anyone’s right.

According to the CDC, the measles vaccination is not 100 percent effective. One dose is about 93 percent, while two offers 97 percent effectiveness. So just because someone is vaccinated doesn’t mean they’re totally immune to the disease.

Refusing to get vaccinated, regardless of the reason, is putting other people’s health and lives at risk, no matter how you slice it. New York City’s approach to the measles outbreak might seem extreme, but at this point, it’s necessary to stop this outbreak once and for all.

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Share this with anyone who doubts vaccines. The U.K. just eliminated measles.

37 years ago, vaccines drove smallpox into extinction. Polio is about to be on death's doorstep. Now the U.K. can say it has added one more name to its personal kill list — measles.

According to a new report from the World Health Organization, Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom in 2016 successfully eliminated the measles virus.

The secret behind this achievement is something simple: vaccines and herd immunity.

It's important to note that, as the WHO defines it, "elimination" doesn't mean "completely wiped out." There were still about 1,600 cases in the United Kingdom last year.

Instead, the WHO reports, the United Kingdom has "interrupted endemic transmission." That is to say, enough people are vaccinated that even if someone does catch the virus, it's effectively impossible for the disease to spread. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as herd immunity, and it didn't happen overnight.

This is the culmination of a long, steady vaccination campaign.

Vaccination campaigns can sometimes face challenges — inadequate supply, unequal access to health services, and hesitancy or misinformation.

Still, the four countries of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) have managed to reach a 95% measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination rate in children younger than 5 years old.

While measles might sound relatively innocuous, it's a serious, potentially deadly disease, especially for children. Measles can cause permanent hearing loss, encephalitis, and death. It can also cause babies to be born prematurely if a pregnant woman contracts the disease. Eliminating it is a big achievement.

The United Kingdom is not the first country to achieve this goal. According to the WHO, 42 out of 53 European countries have achieved elimination.

This news shows that with dedicated, sustained efforts, we can chase some of our greatest specters back into the shadows.

There's still plenty to be done. The U.K. will need to keep up its high vaccination rates and keep the herd immunity strong, or else the disease may gain a foothold once again. But with the vast majority of European countries having now eliminated this disease, measles might soon be marching down the same path as smallpox.

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When his daughter got sick, he made a vaccine and saved millions of lives in the process.

True

On March 21, 1963, Maurice R. Hilleman's daughter woke him up. She had a sore throat.

When he examined her, he realized that she had swelling beneath her jaw.

He knew immediately that this was no ordinary sore throat. She had mumps.

Mumps is a contagious viral disease that typically starts with a fever, headache, aches and pains, fatigue, and a loss of appetite. It is then followed by swollen salivary glands. It used to be the most common cause of acquired hearing loss, and there was no treatment.

All Hilleman could do was tuck his daughter back into bed and hope she would be OK.

‌A 3D representation of a mumps virus particle. Image via Alissa Eckert/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's easy to forget today that those severe childhood diseases like mumps were once a relatively common occurrence.

As recently as half a century ago, kids would often get sick with diseases that caused devastating side effects and, sometimes, even death. In fact, some illnesses such as mumps, measles, and rubella were so prevalent that most parents could easily recognize them — usually because they had either had them themselves or had seen them before.

Measles — the same disease blamed partly for decimating Native American populations after the arrival of European explorers — was so common at the beginning of the 20th century that almost all Americans caught it sometime during their lifetime (though usually as children). In 1912-22, an average of 6,000 people died from it each year in the U.S.

Sometimes these diseases struck in the womb, too.

In the early 1960s, rubella, also known as German measles, was reaching pandemic proportions in pregnant moms. While the disease usually only produced a mild rash and fever in children and adults, if an expectant mother caught the virus — especially in the first trimester — congenital rubella syndrome caused damage to her developing baby more often than not. Not only could this cause miscarriage, but it could also lead to babies being born deaf, blind from cataracts, with heart conditions, or with developmental delays. During the epidemic, 20,000 babies were born with this syndrome.

So when Hilleman's daughter got sick, he decided to take the only action he could. He went to work.

Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman. Image via the National Library of Medicine.

Hilleman had a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Chicago, and he had been working at Merck & Co. for about six years, leading the company’s virus and vaccination research programs.

So, after she was in bed, he immediately drove to work, picked up sampling equipment from his lab, and went home to collect a swab from the back of her throat. He then brought the sample back to the lab, where he used it to help develop a vaccine against mumps.

Hilleman and his colleagues used the sample from his daughter to isolate the disease organism and figure out how to keep it alive in the lab. Then they tried to weaken it in a process called attenuation, or passing the virus over and over through a series of cells until it can no longer reproduce inside a human being (or make people sick) but can still make the body's immune system react and produce antibodies and T-lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell).

This result gives the body the defenses (or "memory" antibodies and T-lymphocytes) to protect itself if it ever comes into contact with the actual virus in the future.

‌Illustrations that were used in public service announcements to encourage parents to vaccinate their children against rubella in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Image via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‌

By 1967, Hilleman had developed a working vaccine for mumps — and he named it Jeryl Lynn after his daughter (who recovered fully from the disease)

But his work on vaccines didn’t stop there. In 1968, he improved upon an existing measles vaccine (one that still caused rashes and fevers). In 1969, he worked with federal regulators to develop a vaccine for rubella in order to prevent another epidemic.

Syringes containing the mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine. Photo by Mark Kegans/Getty Images.

He also figured out how to combine the shots for measles, mumps, and rubella (a total of six shots) into just two — an initial shot and a booster — creating the MMR vaccine.

Hilleman developed and improved upon more than 40 vaccines — more than any other scientist in the world.

As a developer of vaccines, his work is unequaled. Today, over 91% of children receive the MMR vaccine before they turn 3, and it is considered one of the most important vaccines to get before you get pregnant (if you haven’t had it already) to prevent your baby from complications or birth abnormalities.

The MMR vaccine helped wipe out rubella from the Americas by 2015.

‌Hilleman at the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research at West Point in 1963. Image via AP Photo.‌

While many of us might not know his name, Hilleman is a hero in medical science. His work on vaccines saved millions of lives in the continuing battle against contagious disease.

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