Does Measles Cure Cancer?: What People Are Getting Wrong This Week

The totals are for 2025, and it was a great year for measles. According to the CDC, the number of measles cases identified in the United States increased from 285 in 2024 to 2,144 in 2025, the highest number of measles cases since 1990. We have already recorded at least 171 cases of measles in the first two weeks of 2026.

As you probably guessed, experts attribute the rise in measles to falling vaccination rates. I addressed a number of myths about vaccination and measles in this column months ago, but there’s a new twist on measles that seems to be gaining traction: Many people think that getting measles is a disease. GOOD for your health.

“Many studies show that if you actually get the wild infection, you are protected later. It strengthens your immune system later in life against cancers, atopic disease, heart disease, etc.,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in a recent Fox interview. Online, there are posts like this from a chiropractor’s Instagram page, using a clip of The Brady Bunch to argue that contracting measles and other illnesses “prepares a child’s immune system for long-term resilience to chronic problems like cancers and heart disease.” Others cite reporting like this one from CNN to support claims that measles fights cancer.

Can measles fight cancer?

There is no evidence that measles infection can protect against cancer. Complete shutdown. But if measles can to treat cancer is a little more complex. There is a small grain of truth here, but it is wrapped in a plot of misconceptions.

The most fundamental is the meaning of the word “measles”. Oncolytic viral therapy uses genetically modified viruses, including the measles virus, to target cancer cells. A modified version of the measles virus has been used successfully to treat a specific type of cancer and boost the immune response against that cancer. Mayo Clinic researchers report that a patient’s incurable cancer went into remission thanks to the virus. “But this is a therapeutic application of viruses, completely different from what happens with natural infections,” John Bell, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, said in an interview. So it’s not “measles cures cancer”, but “scientists weaponize a virus under controlled conditions”.

Bottom line: Wild measles virus is a dangerous pathogen, not a cure for cancer. Not only that, but part of the reason the viral therapy worked so well on the patient covered by CNN was because she had been vaccinated against measles, so if genetically engineered measles ends up being used as a cancer treatment, it’s better to have been vaccinated than not.

Does getting measles prevent heart disease?

A study from Japan found an association between measles and mumps infections and a lower risk of death from atherosclerotic heart disease. But critics have pointed out that this research relies on self-reporting in a pre-vaccinated population. Given the virulence of measles, everyone surveyed would likely have been exposed to measles as a child, even if they did not remember it. It is therefore difficult to draw conclusions from this study.

Does contracting measles strengthen your immune system?

Although being infected with the disease likely leads to immunity to measles later, it harms your immune system as a whole. A 2019 study from Harvard Medical School published by Sciencediscovered that the measles virus can cause “immune amnesia”, that is, the elimination of three-quarters of the antibodies protecting against the virus. other infections like the flu or bacteria that cause pneumonia. “The measles virus is like a car crash for your immune system,” said Harvard University geneticist Stephen Elledge, lead author of the study. Science study, says The Los Angeles Times.

“If your child gets measles and then pneumonia two years later, you won’t necessarily connect the two. The measles symptoms themselves may be just the tip of the iceberg,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Michael Mina.

Meanwhile, we have extremely strong evidence that the measles vaccine does not cause a general weakening of the immune system – note, for example, the dramatic reduction in childhood deaths from measles. other diseases in places where measles vaccination programs are introduced. After measles vaccination began in the United States in the 1960s, deaths from illnesses like pneumonia and diarrhea were reduced by halfand in populations where infectious diseases are more common, the reduction in mortality reached 80 percent.

Playing devil’s advocate against measles

Let’s assume the critics are right, for the sake of argument. Although contracting measles as a child makes you less likely to get heart disease later in life and gives you a stronger immune system, it always It makes sense to get vaccinated rather than get infected.

Measles is a serious illness. Regardless of future benefits, contracting measles is fatal in about three in 1,000 cases. About one in 1,000 children who contract measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) which can lead to seizures, hearing loss and intellectual disability.

On the other hand, vaccination against measles is very safe. The most serious side effects come from severe allergic reactions, and this occurs at approximately one in a million doses. The measles vaccine generates immunity without the risk of encephalitis, without immune amnesia and without putting a child’s life at stake for a hypothetical future gain. If exposure to measles truly strengthens the immune system in a beneficial way, vaccination captures the immune response while eliminating the damage. No matter how generous you are with the “infection is a good thing” argument, infection is a dangerous and ineffective way to achieve this.