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David Edmonston helped establish the medical history while he was only a boy. The doctors created the measles vaccine after rubbing his throat when he was sick and isolated the virus cultures for the first time. They called this new vaccine the Edmonston strain, which eliminated the highly infectious disease transmitted by the United States.
Today, more than 60 years later, measles is making an alarming return. More than 550 cases have been diagnosed in the United States this year – the second highest number in nearly two decades. An epidemic among ultra-orthodox Jews in Brooklyn prompted New York City to declare a public health emergency last week and order mandatory vaccinations. The disease is spread mainly in communities where misconceptions about vaccine safety persist.
[New York City vaccination order shines spotlight on insular Jewish community]
Edmonston knows something about it. When vaccinating his own child, he and his wife chose not to do so.
Edmonston's wife, who died in 2002, was a public health educator, he said. "In terms of public health, I let her lead the way because she had more information than me. And she was one of the people opposed to vaccination.
His objections are unclear, as a now refuted report linking vaccines to autism was only published in 1998 and doctors reportedly recommended that their son receive inoculation against measles, mumps and rubella in the early 1980s.
"It was wrong, but I do not think it was due to willful ignorance," said 76-year-old retired Edmonston, who lives in Virginia.
Edmonston does not remember much of his own measles. It was in 1954 and Maryland, 11, attended a boarding school near Boston.
"It was pretty nasty, and I was pretty much away all the time," he said in an interview with the Washington Post. "So, my memories are a bit vague."
One thing he clearly remembers, however, is that a doctor comes to his bedside and asks him if he would be willing to "serve humanity". He told Edmonston that he was working on a vaccine and asked him if he could take a blood sample. and throat swab. Edmonston, with a handful of other infected boys in school, nodded.
Later in the school year, Edmonston announced that the doctor and some of his colleagues had come back with the news: the sample he had provided matched exactly what they were looking for and that they would be able to develop a measles vaccine.
"He was a little beaming about this thing," Edmonston said. "They offered me a steak dinner, but I did not care about the steak."
The doctor was Thomas C. Peebles, a researcher at Harvard, a recent medical graduate who worked with famed physician John F. Enders. Enders was awarded a Nobel Prize after successfully cultivating the polio virus in tissue cultures – an essential step towards the development of the polio vaccine.
[A newly discovered film shows Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had polio, walking]
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, just about all children had contracted measles before the age of 15, and about 3 million to 4 million cases would be causing more 400 deaths a year.
Edmonston returned to Bethesda after a year at the school. Nine years later, shortly after completing high school, the vaccine was finally ready to be released to the public.
The effect was immediate. In 1968, the annual number of measles cases reported dropped to 22,231. The vaccine was finally combined with mumps and rubella vaccines in a single vaccine called MMR. In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the United States, which means that there has been no continuous transmission of the disease for more than 12 months.
An unidentified boy receives a measles vaccine at a school in Atlanta in 1962. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Edmonston pursued a varied career as a draftsman, science teacher and owner of a construction company. He was married and had a son in 1980 who he now regrets not having vaccinated against measles. He refused to talk about other vaccines.
[[[[The Truth About Vaccines, Autism, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Theory of Plot]
Edmonston understands that claims linking vaccines to autism or other diseases have been completely refuted. He said that he had suggested to his son, now in his thirties, to get vaccinated.
Edmonston's son did not respond to a request for comment.
Edmonston is proud of the modest but vital role that he has played in reducing measles rates worldwide. He has been a member of the Spirituality Science Meditation Group for decades and "much of the teaching that I am is that we should be at the service of humanity".
"So it's a great opportunity to … serve humanity with very little effort on my part," he said.
Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Learn more Retropolis:
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Christopher Columbus and the potato that changed the world
A surgeon experimented with female slaves without anesthesia. Now his statues are attacked.
"You have bad faith": the horror of the Tuskegee experiment on syphilis
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