Here's the Story, of a Deadly Virus: When The Brady Bunch Rewrites Measles History
The Weaponization of Pop Culture Nostalgia
A concerning trend has emerged in vaccine-skeptical circles: the use of a 1969 episode of "The Brady Bunch" to downplay the seriousness of measles. The episode titled "Is There a Doctor in the House?" shows the entire Brady family contracting measles, treating it as little more than an inconvenience and even a welcome break from school. In the episode, Carol Brady describes the symptoms as "a slight temperature, a lot of dots and a great big smile," while Marcia Brady cheerfully declares, "If you have to get sick, sure can't beat the measles."
This half-century-old sitcom episode has become a powerful weapon in anti-vaccine messaging. Social media "momfluencers" and prominent vaccine skeptics regularly share clips from the episode, using it to suggest that measles was once considered harmless and that today's public health concerns are overblown. Del Bigtree, a producer of anti-vaccine content, has pointed to the episode asking, "We were all giggling and laughing because the whole family in the Brady Bunch got the measles. Where is the sitcom that joked about dying from AIDS or joked about dying from cancer?"
The episode continues to be used as a cultural reference to discredit both the severity of measles infection and the benefits of vaccines, particularly as measles cases have risen in parts of the United States and globally in recent years. Let’s discuss…
Reality Check: What a 1963 Newspaper Tells Us
But what if we could travel back to the actual era when the Brady Bunch episode aired and see how measles was viewed by medical professionals? My colleague, Dr. Michael Mina, astutely suggested we do exactly that – look at the historical record rather than rely on a fictional TV show. He dug up a New York Times article from March 28, 1963 (just six years before the Brady Bunch episode aired) titled "The Measles Vaccine." So, let’s hop in our time machine and see what life was really like in the 60s…
Not so groovy. The article's tone couldn't be more different from the sitcom's portrayal.
It states:
"In terms of frequency, measles is the number one disease of childhood and it is far from harmless. It renders its victims highly susceptible to other infections."
The article goes on to detail that "the most dreaded complication is encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain and the spinal cord that may lead to permanent damage." It reports that in 1958, there were 552 deaths in the United States caused by measles, compared with 255 deaths from polio. In 1960, there were 410 deaths from measles, compared with 260 deaths from polio.
These stark statistics from the actual historical record directly contradict the narrative that measles was universally considered a benign childhood illness in the 1960s. Medical professionals of that era clearly recognized its dangers.
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
Interestingly, even Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady, has spoken out against the use of the episode to promote anti-vaccine messaging. When she discovered that anti-vaccination Facebook groups were circulating memes of her with measles from the episode, she was "furious."
"I think it's really wrong when people use people's images today to promote whatever they want to promote and the person's image they're using they haven't asked or they have no idea where they stand on the issue," she said. "As a mother, my daughter was vaccinated."
McCormick also revealed that her actual experience with measles as a child was nothing like the Brady Bunch episode: "Having the measles was not a fun thing. I remember it spread through my family."
Even Lloyd J. Schwartz, son of Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz, took issue with using the show to discourage vaccination, saying, "Dad would be sorry, because he believed in vaccination, had all of his kids vaccinated."
The Groundbreaking Discovery of "Immune Amnesia"
On this week's episode of the pod, you can hear our conversation with Dr. Michael Mina. Funnily enough, when we welcomed him on—we knew he was a brilliant epidemiologist, immunologist, and physician, but we didn't realize he was one of the people who actually cracked the code on immune amnesia. Totally starstruck (science struck?) beyond belief.
The idea that measles might have long-term effects on immunity isn't entirely new. As Dr. Mina explained, "In a way, the ability of measles to deplete or to diminish immunological memory has been sitting in front of our noses for at least 100 years. Why exactly it went so long without really being discovered and linked to excess mortality, I am still not quite sure."
As early as 1908, pediatrician and immunologist Clemens von Pirquet had noticed that after measles infection, children no longer tested positive for prior tuberculosis infection. But the effects of measles on immunity remained largely confined to curious case reports and obscure findings for more than a century.
Working with colleagues, Dr. Mina published two pivotal papers that demonstrated the profound immune-compromising effects of measles. They showed that measles infection can deplete between 10-70% of a survivor's antibodies, with the effects lasting for years. Their research suggests that measles may once have been implicated in up to half of all childhood infectious disease deaths, not from the measles infection itself but from the subsequent vulnerability to other infections.
In a 2019 paper examining children in a Dutch Orthodox Protestant community that does not vaccinate, Dr. Mina and his team showed that measles patients had an average 20% reduction in the overall diversity of their antibodies. Some children lost more than 40% of their protection against other diseases.
As Dr. Mina explained, "By preserving immunity, measles vaccines may have reset overall baseline morbidity and mortality rates to lower levels."
P.S. We are trying to move away from using the phrase "natural immunity" because, as we recently explained, it implies some sort of gentle touch by mother nature. We are shifting to the phrase "survivor immunity" (a la Dr. Paul Offit) because it more accurately captures the very real risks that come with acquiring immunity through infection rather than vaccination.
The Importance of Not Rewriting History
The contrast between the Brady Bunch episode and both the historical record and modern scientific understanding of measles illustrates a critical point: we must be cautious about rewriting history to fit current narratives.
As Associate Professor Ian Mackay, a virologist from the University of Queensland, notes with concern: "We have a very small but vocal minority who are often promoting products while spreading misinformation. They create anxiety in the population and then offer supposed solutions to problems they've manufactured."
He believes immune amnesia should be part of the public health message: "I don't think it's building a bridge too far. I think it's been known for decades that people become more susceptible to other infections and have worse cases of bacterial infections [after measles]."
Dr. Mina agrees that including information about immune amnesia in vaccine messaging makes sense: "This isn't actually that confusing of a topic. The actual mechanism is [complex], but the meaning of it and what it represents is actually pretty simple. Most people understand that the way vaccines or infections and immunity work is that you develop some sort of protection after you've been exposed, and if that protection disappears, then you're at a higher risk later on."
By allowing a fictional sitcom to override both historical records and cutting-edge immunological research, we risk making decisions based on a nostalgic fantasy rather than reality. The stakes are too high to allow such historical revisionism to guide public health decisions that affect our most vulnerable populations.
The stakes are too high to let sitcom nostalgia override medical reality. Measles isn't just about spots and a week off school—it's a dangerous disease that can erase years of hard-earned immunity. When it comes to our children's health, we need to trust the science, not the screenwriters.
Stay Curious,
Unbiased Science
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When I was a pediatric resident in the 80s, I saw one case. The chief resident called many of us interns to see the child because he said that it might be the only case we’d ever see because of the success of vaccines. The child was not immunized. The 18 month old was struggling to breathe through the massive amount of mucus in his nose and airway. Fever was over 104 degrees and the child was limp and exhausted. NOT a fun disease with polka dots; rather, a miserable and sometimes fatal disease.
"Survivor immunity" does seem a better term than "natural immunity." After all vaccine immunity and immunity from exposure to a pathogen provoke the same responses by the acquired immune system, but the first is more survivable than the second.