Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health

“Measles is a biological agent that preys on human inequity,” according to this penetrating debut analysis. Ratner, a professor of pediatrics at NYU, contends that the virus’s history illustrates how social factors determine who gets sick. For example, he describes how in the late 19th century, poor children in England died from measles at significantly higher rates than their wealthier peers because malnutrition and cramped tenements increased their vulnerability. Protection from viruses depends on much more than vaccine efficacy, Ratner argues, discussing how the rollout of the first measles vaccines in the early 1960s was hampered by the lack of a centralized distribution plan, confusion over which of the two options was better for which patients, and inadequate messaging from health experts on the vaccines’ benefits. Elsewhere, Ratner covers how a recall of a 1992 measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine in England and a fraudulent 1998 scientific article positing a link between MMR vaccines and autism spurred an anti-vaccine movement that contributed to measles outbreaks in California and New York in the 2010s. Ratner provides fascinating scientific insight into measles, explaining how the virus induces a kind of immunological amnesia by targeting immune cells responsible for remembering how to counteract previously encountered viruses, and he makes a strong case that health depends on much more than biology. This will open readers’ eyes. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Agency. (Feb.)