One-Shot Vaccine for Measles

Many a mother still believes that measles is one of those unavoidable childhood illnesses and amounts to nothing more than a seven-day siege of spots and fever with no lasting ill effects, but doctors know better. Every year, thousands or tens of thousands of children develop pneumonia from measles, and many of them die. Even worse is the fate of many of the 4,000 or so each year who develop encephalitis and do not die but are doomed to spend the rest of their lives in homes for the mentally retarded. Between its killing and crippling effects, measles has always been a more serious disease than polio ever was. And the sad truth is, Surgeon General Luther Terry of the U.S. Public Health Service reported last week, that U.S. doctors have failed to convince parents that all children should be vaccinated against measles.

Live & Dead. Hope for wholesale measles shots has just been boosted by the announcement that Indianapolis' Pitman-Moore Division of the Dow Chemical Co. has now begun to market a one-shot vaccine that is expected to give lifelong immunity. The virus used in the new vaccine is derived from the famed Edmonston strain used by Harvard's Nobel-prizewinning Virologist John F. Enders (TIME Cover, Nov. 17, 1961), but new research has added many advantages. When the attenuated virus in Enders' vaccine remained strong enough to give the required immunity, it was also strong enough to give many children what amounted to a slight case of measles, with a mild rash and some fever. A later vaccine made with killed virus took two or three injections to build immunity of uncertain length. Doctors' preferences varied between giving a shot of the live vaccine with a shot of gamma globulin to reduce side effects, or giving one or more shots of killed vaccine, then one of the live. In the confusion, only 7,000,000 U.S. children have been vaccinated, which leaves 20 million susceptible youngsters.

Never Twice. The Pitman-Moore vaccine offers a way out of the dilemma. After nurturing scores of "generations" of Enders' bug, Dr. Anton J. F. Schwarz now grows the final product in cultures of cells from virus-free eggs. When injected into a child, it causes no rash or fever; the Public Health Service's hypercritical Division of Biologies Standards is satisfied that the vaccine contains no contaminating viruses. New York University's Dr. Saul Krugman reports that 2 1/2 years of testing indicate that one injection confers just as solid immunity as the natural disease. "That means it should be good for life," he said. "You don't get measles twice."

Asked whether immunization of all first-graders at a cost of about $24 million would stamp out measles in six years, Chicago's Dr. Morten Andelman answered: "It could be done sooner, and for less." Even $24 million would be less than the current annual cost of care for the mentally retarded victims of measles encephalitis.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.