12/24/2025
A recent article by researcher Marcella Piper-Terry dives deep into the potential protective effects of natural measles infection, arguing that far from being a purely dangerous disease, it may offer significant long-term health benefits that we've lost in the vaccine era.
In the pre-vaccine years, measles mortality in the U.S. had already plummeted by over 98% thanks to better nutrition, sanitation, and living conditions—long before the 1963 vaccine rollout.
Doctors from that time often described measles as a mild, inevitable childhood rite of passage, typically resolving in about a week for most kids aged 3-7, with many parents noting afterward how much stronger and healthier their children seemed.
One physician observed that "in the majority of children the whole episode has been well and truly over in a week... and many mothers have remarked ‘how much good the attack has done their children,’ as they seem so much better after the measles."
Research highlighted in the piece suggests that recovering from natural measles trains the immune system in profound ways, potentially lowering lifetime risks for Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, atopic conditions like asthma, eczema, and hay fever, as well as cardiovascular disease in adulthood.
Babies born to mothers with natural measles immunity also get far stronger and longer-lasting passive protection than those from vaccinated moms.
The most striking part explores documented cases where natural measles infection triggered spontaneous cancer remission.
One standout example is an 8-year-old boy in Africa with advanced Burkitt's lymphoma: after four months of progressive orbital swelling confirmed by biopsy, he contracted measles, developed the rash, and over the next two weeks his massive tumor completely regressed without any chemotherapy.
The timing matched peak viral activity, and experts concluded the measles virus directly destroyed the tumor cells, which express high levels of the SLAM receptor that measles targets.
Remission lasted at least four months, with seroconversion confirming the infection's role.
Similar regressions were reported in the British Medical Journal (1973) for a 23-month-old with infantile Hodgkin's lymphoma post-measles, in The Lancet (1981) for another Hodgkin's case, and in a 2013 review noting 16 spontaneous Hodgkin's remissions overall, five in children following measles—mostly the mixed cellularity subtype.
These historical observations mirror modern oncology, where engineered measles viruses (derived from vaccine strains) are now used in oncolytic virotherapy to treat refractory cancers like multiple myeloma, with promising results from trials at the Mayo Clinic and coverage in outlets like CNN.
On the flip side, childhood cancer rates have risen steadily since the 1970s rollout of the combined MMR vaccine.
Today, around 9,900-10,000 U.S. kids under 15 are diagnosed annually, with leukemia, brain tumors, and lymphomas leading causes of cancer-related death in children.
The article raises pointed concerns about MMR vaccines being grown on aborted fetal cell lines, potentially introducing residual human DNA fragments that could integrate into a child's genome during critical developmental windows (like the 12-15 month vaccination schedule), creating "hotspots" for genetic changes linked to cancer—citing research from Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute.
Ultimately, Piper-Terry contends that by vaccinating away natural measles, we may have removed a key immune-maturity event, trading short-term prevention for elevated risks of chronic diseases and cancers down the line.
This is powerful food for thought—especially for parents weighing risks and benefits.
🔗 The full piece is eye-opening: https://marcellapiperterry.substack.com/p/measles-and-cancer-measles-can-be
