Inadequate support: The studies used to support the claim collected data using self-reporting questionnaires. This approach is vulnerable to bias that can lead to incorrect conclusions. These studies only reported associations, but provided no evidence that the associations were causal in nature.
FULL CLAIM: There are “significant long term health benefits” from getting measles; “What if people had just been allowed to get the [measles] virus naturally in the first place? We maybe wouldn’t need it as a cancer treatment?”; measles prevents cancer and heart disease
REVIEW
In February 2025, an Instagram post claimed that getting measles provides “long term health benefits”. It was published by the account @the.holistic.mother, which has roughly 400,000 followers.
The user behind the account, Kendra Needham, is a co-founder of Joywell, an organization promoting “traditional uses of homeopathy and holistic care”. Needham also earns commissions on Amazon for the sale of various books promoting health misinformation, like “Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies”, the same book cited in her post as evidence for its claims.
The author of the book is journalist Neil Miller, who has a degree in psychology but no credentials in biology or medicine. Miller previously put out flawed analyses purporting to show childhood vaccines are unsafe. Science Feedback explored the credibility of some of these analyses in previous reviews, showing how these analyses were conducted with highly flawed methods.
Miller also published other books containing vaccine misinformation, such as “Make an Informed Vaccine Decision for the Health of Your Child”. Its inaccurate claims about vaccines were addressed by this article from Science-Based Medicine.
Various studies have shown that childhood vaccines don’t increase the risk of health problems, a subject that we explored in some depth in this review.
An Instagram post by chiropractor Stanton Hom also promoted the same claims about measles. It was viewed more than 180,000 times.
Measles is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, “[n]ine out of 10 unimmunized children who are in contact with an infected person will contract the virus”. Furthermore, the virus can persist in the air for about two hours, during which it can continue to infect unimmunized people, even after the infected person has left the room.
The disease produces cold-like symptoms, such as a cough, sneezing, and fever. A rash commonly appears, starting on the face and then spreading to the rest of the body. White spots in the mouth may also appear.
The post comes in the wake of a measles outbreak in rural West Texas. To date, 58 cases have been reported and 13 have been hospitalized. Most cases occurred within an undervaccinated community in Gaines County, which had the highest vaccine exemption rate (nearly 18%) in the state as of the 2023-2024 school year. For context, the average rate of vaccine exemption in Texas in the same period was roughly 4%.
The post’s claim that getting measles is beneficial because it prevents cancer and heart disease is the product of misinterpreting and exaggerating certain studies. Ultimately, the post promotes unproven benefits from measles but doesn’t account for proven risks from the disease. We explain below.
Cited studies relied on questionnaires, don’t provide sufficient evidence that measles prevents cancer and heart disease
The Instagram post cited a 1998 study by Albonico et al. as evidence that measles prevents cancer. The study appeared in the journal Medical Hypotheses. It’s important to note that prior to June 2010, articles submitted to this journal weren’t peer-reviewed before publication, contrary to norms in scientific publishing. Elsevier, the publisher of the journal, later pushed for the journal to incorporate peer review into its publishing process, after the journal published papers promoting HIV/AIDS denialism, leading to strong objections from the research community.
In the study, researchers distributed questionnaires to patients of “35 anthroposophic general practitioners”, asking for information of their history of childhood infection. Patients were divided into two groups: those with cancer and those who didn’t have cancer. Based on the data collected, the researchers reported that having a history of childhood infection with certain diseases, such as measles, was associated with a lower risk of cancer.
This article from Skeptical Raptor explained how this study lacked rigor. Firstly, it was based on a questionnaire, in which people self-reported their history of infections. The issue with this approach is that self-reports are prone to bias, such as recall bias and confirmation bias. In the absence of methods to independently ensure accuracy of participants’ responses—like corroborating responses with medical records—such analyses can lead to incorrect conclusions.
Secondly, anthroposophic medicine is a pseudoscientific practice invoking spiritualism and the occult, rather than scientific evidence. This raises questions about the surveyed population: their belief in anthroposophic medicine may lead to biased responses that skew results in a way favoring their belief.
Thirdly, while the researchers found an association, associations alone don’t necessarily mean that there’s a causal relationship, although associations provide clues that can inspire further research.
This is reinforced by the fact that the study didn’t look at potential confounding factors, which may have influenced its results independent of past infections.
Confounding factors are variables other than the ones being studied—in this case, an individual’s history of infection—that can affect the outcome being studied (cancer diagnosis). For example, cancer risk is influenced by many factors, including genetics, diet, tobacco use, and level of physical activity. To reinforce the hypothesis that past infection causally affects cancer risk, the study needed to have ruled out the influence of confounding factors on its results. But it didn’t do so.
In brief, this study doesn’t provide reliable evidence for the claim that measles prevents cancer. It’s also important to keep in mind that even if infection hypothetically can influence cancer risk, this influence is complex and not always benign. Some infections actually increase the risk of cancer. For example, the hepatitis B virus and the human papillomavirus are both causally linked to liver cancer and cervical cancer, respectively.
The post also misconstrued research involving the use of the measles virus to treat cancer as further evidence for its claim, asking “What if people had just been allowed to get the virus naturally in the first place? We maybe wouldn’t need it as a cancer treatment?”
However, the clinical trial that observed success with this approach used a genetically modified measles virus to target cancer cells. Therefore, their findings cannot be generalized to that of the wild measles virus that causes disease.
The post’s other claim that measles reduces the risk of heart disease is unsubstantiated as well. This claim appears to be based on this 2015 study in Japan[1]. In the study, participants completed questionnaires about their lifestyle and medical history regarding cardiovascular disease, cancer, and measles and mumps infections. Participants came from a population that was exposed to measles and mumps before the vaccines against both diseases became available.
The researchers reported that a history of measles and mumps infections was associated with lower risks of mortality from atherosclerotic heart disease.
First, it’s important to establish that the study didn’t examine the risk of developing heart disease as the post implied, but the risk of dying from heart disease. Risk factors for developing heart disease are smoking, high cholesterol, being overweight or obese, and diabetes. There’s no evidence that getting measles reduces the risk of heart disease.
Secondly, the study reported an association, but didn’t establish a causal relationship between getting measles and having a lower risk of heart disease mortality.
Thirdly, like the study by Albanico et al., this study relied solely on self-reporting questionnaires. Consequently, the same caveats regarding self-reports apply.
Fourthly, the authors proposed that the reduced mortality risk from cardiovascular disease in people with a history of measles and mumps infection could be due to infection-induced changes in the immune system. Interestingly, the authors suggested that “[s]timulation of immune function, as in vaccination, may be a novel treatment for [cardiovascular disease] in the future” [emphasis ours].
To be clear, the study didn’t investigate this hypothesis or provide evidence to support it. But this statement does signal that the authors viewed measles vaccination as a positive. However, this takeaway is absent from the Instagram post, which used the study’s results to arrive at the opposite conclusion.
What we see in the post is therefore a form of cherry-picking, in which information favoring the user’s viewpoint—that is, measles infection is beneficial and that measles vaccination is to be avoided—is exaggerated in importance or distorted to make it seem as if their view is supported by scientific evidence when it isn’t.
Plenty of evidence that measles can lead to long-term health problems, such as deafness and brain damage
Apart from cherry-picking, the post is also flawed because it omitted proven risks from measles, creating the misconception that getting measles is safer than getting vaccinated.
It’s true that the majority of people who catch measles recover after about a week with no lasting effects, but roughly three in ten will develop complications from the infection. These include ear infection that can lead to deafness and encephalitis (brain inflammation) that can lead to permanent disability or death. About 1 in 1,000 will die from measles even if they receive treatment.
A very rare complication, called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, can occur years after a person has recovered from the initial measles infection. There is no cure.
Pregnant women who have a measles infection are more likely to be hospitalized and to develop pneumonia. Measles infection can also affect the unborn baby, increasing the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth.
Studies have also established that measles weakens immune memory, creating what’s called “immune amnesia”. This means that the immune system becomes unable to recognize infections that it encountered in the past. This opens the individual up to a greater risk of various infections and complications from those infections.
The post’s implication that getting measles is good for the heart is belied by the fact that measles infection increases the risk of heart complications directly and indirectly.
In rare cases, the measles virus can cause myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle)[2-4]. And by causing immune amnesia, measles can increase the risk of infection from other pathogens that in turn increase the risk of heart complications. For example, viral infections are a common cause of myocarditis.
Scientific evidence shows that the best way of avoiding complications from measles is to get vaccinated. The measles vaccine is highly effective at preventing disease: getting two doses protects 99% of people from disease. The vaccine also protects people from complications of measles, like immune amnesia.
However, there are certain groups that cannot get the vaccine, including very young infants and people who are immunocompromised. For their protection, these groups must rely on others around them to be vaccinated (herd immunity). Because measles is highly contagious, a very high degree of vaccine coverage is required: 19 out of 20 people need to be vaccinated to establish herd immunity to measles.
Conclusion
The Instagram post misleads users into believing that there’s scientific evidence showing that measles infection is beneficial for people. In fact, the studies it cited as evidence contained important limitations and are far from being reliable evidence of measles’ benefits.
The post failed to acknowledge the evidence that getting measles comes with proven risks. While the majority of people who catch measles recover after about a week with no lasting effects, roughly three in ten people will develop complications that can result in permanent disability or death. Measles can also cause “immune amnesia”, which weakens the immune system and renders a person more vulnerable to future infections. The measles vaccine is highly effective at preventing disease and complications.
REFERENCES
- 1 – Kubota et al. (2015) Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: The Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study. Atherosclerosis.
- 2 – Giustra FX. (1954) Final Report On A Case Of Myocarditis Following Measles. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
- 3 – Finkel HE. (1964) Measles myocarditis. American Heart Journal.
- 4 – Susanto et al. (2024) Measles-associated Myocarditis: A Case Report. Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal.
