Sorrel Kinton missed out on childhood jabs due to vaccine hesitancy. It was a decision that cost her dearly
Maeve Cullinan,
GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY REPORTER
1 February 2024 • 10:08am
Related Topics
Global Health Security, Measles, Vaccines
Putting the discomfort down to her training regime, the then 19-year-old tried to ignore her symptoms. But the day before the big audition, she woke up unable to move her arms. A few days later, she was in hospital battling a devastating – and entirely preventable – illness: measles.
Due to her parents’ vaccine hesitancy, Sorrel did not get her childhood jabs. Now 33, she is “angry” that her life was put at risk and resents the decision made by her mum and her dad.
“My life could have taken a different track,” said Sorrel. “There’s not a lot known about post-measles [impacts], but it had a really serious effect on me.”
For Sorrel, and many others, measles was more than just a rash. She now suffers from what is known as ‘immune amnesia,’ a post-infection phenomenon, where the body’s ability to fight diseases is significantly depleted.
Even the initial attack of the virus was serious. Sorrel had to be hospitalised with a soaring temperature, delirium and a painful rash that spread down her throat and into her eyelids.
And she has never fully recovered.
“Measles shattered my health. I had strings of kidney infections and would get every cough or cold under the sun. I couldn’t keep up with the physical side of dance, and had to give it up,” she said.
Sorrel attributes her illness to immune amnesia, a phenomenon that has only come to light in the last decade.
“After measles, the reactivity antibodies change profoundly, such that there are no longer antibodies around in the blood to fight off common infections – you have a temporary deficit in your immunity,” explained Professor Kellam, a virologist at Imperial College London.
Sorrel added: “What happened to me after the measles was so poorly understood that I had to explain to people without a lot of evidence that I wasn’t ‘hamming it up’ – I was really unwell”.
Measles is spread between humans through coughing and sneezing, and is currently sweeping large areas of Britain, with experts warning that the next few months could see thousands of cases.
It is one of the world’s most contagious illnesses, with nine out of 10 unvaccinated people becoming infected if they come into contact with a case.
For every 100 cases, up to 20 people will suffer some form of complication.
Vaccination reduces the risk of contracting measles by a staggering 97 per cent and doctors are urgently calling for all those who have not yet received a jab to get one.
In some parts of Britain, nearly half of all children are not fully protected against the disease.
A dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is displayed
The so-called ‘Wakefield generation’ went unvaccinated in the wake of the MMR vaccine scare CREDIT: Elaine Thompson/AP
There are also many young adults closer to Sorrel’s age – the so-called “Wakefield generation” – who went unvaccinated in the wake of the MMR vaccine scare sparked by former British clinician Andrew Wakefield, who suggested the jab was linked to autism and was later struck off the medical register.
Over the past four months, 347 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported in England, compared to just 53 cases confirmed in all of 2022.
In London, modelling suggests an outbreak of between 40,000 and 160,000 cases could occur due to low vaccination rates.
Professor Dame Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of UKHSA, stressed earlier this month: “Immediate action is needed to boost MMR uptake across communities where vaccine uptake is low. Children who get measles can be very poorly and some will suffer life-changing complications. The best way for parents to protect their children from measles is the MMR vaccine.”
Complications arising from measles infections are more common than most people realise, with between one and three deaths for every 1,000 children who become infected.
“Children younger than five years of age and adults older than 20 years of age are more likely to suffer from complications,” says the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). “Common complications are ear infections and diarrhoea. Serious complications include pneumonia and encephalitis.”
The CDC adds: “About one in five unvaccinated people in the US who get measles is hospitalised; as many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia; and about one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability.”
The disease can also spark longer-term complications.
Complications arising from measles infections are more common than most people realise CREDIT: Science Photo Library RF
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is “a very rare, but fatal” disease of the central nervous system that results from a measles virus infection acquired earlier in life, says the CDC. It typically develops seven to 10 years after a person has measles, “even though the person seems to have fully recovered”.
The immune condition Sorrel has is different and less well understood.
In 2019, research from the Wellcome Sanger Institute found that the measles virus can infect the B-cells of the immune system, effectively wiping their “memory” and lowering the body’s ability to fight off infection.
“It’s almost like someone has taken a rubber to a page of pencil text and taken out sentences and words across the entire page – you’ve wiped away someone’s immune memory,” said Professor Kellam.
“But if you’re vaccinated and never get measles, then your ability to fight pathogens remains intact. It’s another huge benefit of measles vaccination.”
Sorrel considers herself lucky. As an unvaccinated adult, measles didn’t make her go blind or deaf, or leave her with brain damage.
But years of poor health altered the course of her life – delaying university, ending her dreams of becoming a dancer, and fracturing her relationship with her anti-vax parents for many years.
She now works in science communication, partly fuelled by her personal experience with disinformation.
“I developed an interest in helping people understand science,” she said. “Maybe if my parents had encountered the right piece of information at the right time, they would have made a different decision.”
If you have been receiving texts from your doctor saying you haven’t had your MMR jabs: get it booked!
If you have any doubt at all whether you’ve had yours or not: get it booked!
The MMR vaccine was introduced to the UK in 1988. If you’re older, you might have received the three vaccines separately. My mum isn’t sure whether I had mine or not, due to when I was born and where we were living at the time. My records say I haven’t, and presumably I didn’t get the separate ones either.
My doctor has been texting me links to book a vaccine appointment for a few weeks now. I booked mine for Tuesday. I was literally in and out. No hassle at all. I’ll need to find time to go back in about four weeks for the second dose.
At uni we had at least 5 drop out with mumps in the first semester.
People in this country still dont even vaccinate to stop getting shingles.
No wonder other antivaxxers are on the rise.
after the governments lied about the COVID vaccines, it isn’t shocking that people are scared to get a jab.
## Get the MMR vaccine.
All the supposed links to autism have been discredited.
The rise in autism in society is more a result of a rise in diagnosis of autism that was likely just as prevalent in past generations. It’s just our understanding and diagnosis of it wasn’t as good back then.
I’ll say it again and I’ll say it till I die. If you can get vaccinated and you don’t you’re a fucking moron!!!
I know someone that got measles. Doctors never believe them and the issues caused later in life are still a nightmare.
This will only get worse. 19 years ago, this lady’s parents were probably on the statistical fringe of people not getting vaccinated. There’s now half a generation of Facebook idiots who think the MMR vaccination is a scam by George Soros or something.
Failure to vaccinate a child should be legally regarded as neglect.
A lot of Eastern Europeans living here are not vaccinating their children. One of my closest friends is Bulgarian. She tells me with pride about how her children have only had the first three sets of vaccinations, her friends children have had none and they also don’t think the covid vaccinations are safe. It should be mandatory for everyone imo
I had measles as a baby, fortunately it doesn’t appear to have had any long term affects but my mom tells me how she was sure I wasn’t going to survive and that I had to be kept in a dark room for a time as I wasn’t allowed to be in the light. I was just unfortunate in that I contracted it before I was even due to be vaccinated so not my parents fault. It is probably because I was so young that I haven’t had any longer term issues.
Based on what my mom has told me about it I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and I think it is irresponsible not to protect against it. My brother was vaccinated as soon as he was eligible and I made sure that my son was vaccinated.
Vaccine hesitancy? Call it what it is, they were antivaxxers.
If you haven’t had your MMR or aren’t sure, your GP will be able to vaccinate you. A third dose won’t hurt you so they’d rather just jab you to make sure you are done than leave you unvaccinated. Get calling and protect yourself if your parents haven’t or you were born before MMR was the norm.
I’ve always thought that children should be able to sue their parents if they end up with health problems because of their parents’ negligence or poor decision making.
Eg, children with vaccine-preventable diseases who weren’t vaccinated, children of drug addicts who ended up with birth defects because of their mothers drug use during pregnancy (such as with FAS), children of parents who used alternative/homeopathic medicine instead of evidence based medicine, etc
Measles killed my father’s baby sister 80+ years ago. There was no way my parents were not getting me vaccinated. I thank them and that baby every time I read something like this.
Yes parents should vaccinate but she was 19 yrs old, why didn’t she go get vaccinated herself as soon as she had medical autonomy?
I am older so only had 1 jab & not even MMR back then it was MR as I am female .
I realised the second jab only came out when i was 19 and 4 yrs ago I booked myself into a 10 min Boots appointment and got my jabs updated
If you don’t give your children the MMR you are ignorant scum. End of.
No I don’t care what you read down an internet rabbit hole. Shut up. Book the vaccination today.
Vaccination is a highly beneficial practice that should be universally adopted by parents for the well-being of their children.
Take care of yourselves . You’re about to see a lot more than measles make it’s way back , and you won’t be able to blame on antivaxxers … or actually most of you probably will .
Just tell the anti-vaxxers that measles gives you AIDS.
I really want to know how her parents reacted to all this, whether they refuse to believe it’s measles and something else. That fact it’s not mentioned anywhere leads me to think they have no remorse endangering their daughter’s life and future, which is a shame. There needs to be more parents who come forward warning about the dangers of jeopardising their children.
Our baby is 10 months and we got a letter about her 12-month jabs – inviting us, if we wanted, to enrol her in a vaccine trial. One component of these is stopping being made in 2025 (pnemococcal and HiB iirc, the letter’s downstairs) and they want to see how a new replacement does. Also it gives us a free chickenpox jab if we want. Holy shit yes did we jump at the chance. Hopefully the antivaxx morons will run a mile so we can get her in.
We got our eldest the chickenpox jab privately and had already planned for youngest’s anyway so why not?
Yep, I had the mumps. I haven’t been the same since.
23 comments
Full Text:
Sorrel Kinton missed out on childhood jabs due to vaccine hesitancy. It was a decision that cost her dearly
Maeve Cullinan,
GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY REPORTER
1 February 2024 • 10:08am
Related Topics
Global Health Security, Measles, Vaccines
Putting the discomfort down to her training regime, the then 19-year-old tried to ignore her symptoms. But the day before the big audition, she woke up unable to move her arms. A few days later, she was in hospital battling a devastating – and entirely preventable – illness: measles.
Due to her parents’ vaccine hesitancy, Sorrel did not get her childhood jabs. Now 33, she is “angry” that her life was put at risk and resents the decision made by her mum and her dad.
“My life could have taken a different track,” said Sorrel. “There’s not a lot known about post-measles [impacts], but it had a really serious effect on me.”
For Sorrel, and many others, measles was more than just a rash. She now suffers from what is known as ‘immune amnesia,’ a post-infection phenomenon, where the body’s ability to fight diseases is significantly depleted.
Even the initial attack of the virus was serious. Sorrel had to be hospitalised with a soaring temperature, delirium and a painful rash that spread down her throat and into her eyelids.
And she has never fully recovered.
“Measles shattered my health. I had strings of kidney infections and would get every cough or cold under the sun. I couldn’t keep up with the physical side of dance, and had to give it up,” she said.
Sorrel attributes her illness to immune amnesia, a phenomenon that has only come to light in the last decade.
“After measles, the reactivity antibodies change profoundly, such that there are no longer antibodies around in the blood to fight off common infections – you have a temporary deficit in your immunity,” explained Professor Kellam, a virologist at Imperial College London.
Sorrel added: “What happened to me after the measles was so poorly understood that I had to explain to people without a lot of evidence that I wasn’t ‘hamming it up’ – I was really unwell”.
Measles is spread between humans through coughing and sneezing, and is currently sweeping large areas of Britain, with experts warning that the next few months could see thousands of cases.
It is one of the world’s most contagious illnesses, with nine out of 10 unvaccinated people becoming infected if they come into contact with a case.
For every 100 cases, up to 20 people will suffer some form of complication.
Vaccination reduces the risk of contracting measles by a staggering 97 per cent and doctors are urgently calling for all those who have not yet received a jab to get one.
In some parts of Britain, nearly half of all children are not fully protected against the disease.
A dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is displayed
The so-called ‘Wakefield generation’ went unvaccinated in the wake of the MMR vaccine scare CREDIT: Elaine Thompson/AP
There are also many young adults closer to Sorrel’s age – the so-called “Wakefield generation” – who went unvaccinated in the wake of the MMR vaccine scare sparked by former British clinician Andrew Wakefield, who suggested the jab was linked to autism and was later struck off the medical register.
Over the past four months, 347 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported in England, compared to just 53 cases confirmed in all of 2022.
In London, modelling suggests an outbreak of between 40,000 and 160,000 cases could occur due to low vaccination rates.
Professor Dame Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of UKHSA, stressed earlier this month: “Immediate action is needed to boost MMR uptake across communities where vaccine uptake is low. Children who get measles can be very poorly and some will suffer life-changing complications. The best way for parents to protect their children from measles is the MMR vaccine.”
Complications arising from measles infections are more common than most people realise, with between one and three deaths for every 1,000 children who become infected.
“Children younger than five years of age and adults older than 20 years of age are more likely to suffer from complications,” says the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). “Common complications are ear infections and diarrhoea. Serious complications include pneumonia and encephalitis.”
The CDC adds: “About one in five unvaccinated people in the US who get measles is hospitalised; as many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia; and about one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability.”
The disease can also spark longer-term complications.
Complications arising from measles infections are more common than most people realise CREDIT: Science Photo Library RF
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is “a very rare, but fatal” disease of the central nervous system that results from a measles virus infection acquired earlier in life, says the CDC. It typically develops seven to 10 years after a person has measles, “even though the person seems to have fully recovered”.
The immune condition Sorrel has is different and less well understood.
In 2019, research from the Wellcome Sanger Institute found that the measles virus can infect the B-cells of the immune system, effectively wiping their “memory” and lowering the body’s ability to fight off infection.
“It’s almost like someone has taken a rubber to a page of pencil text and taken out sentences and words across the entire page – you’ve wiped away someone’s immune memory,” said Professor Kellam.
“But if you’re vaccinated and never get measles, then your ability to fight pathogens remains intact. It’s another huge benefit of measles vaccination.”
Sorrel considers herself lucky. As an unvaccinated adult, measles didn’t make her go blind or deaf, or leave her with brain damage.
But years of poor health altered the course of her life – delaying university, ending her dreams of becoming a dancer, and fracturing her relationship with her anti-vax parents for many years.
She now works in science communication, partly fuelled by her personal experience with disinformation.
“I developed an interest in helping people understand science,” she said. “Maybe if my parents had encountered the right piece of information at the right time, they would have made a different decision.”
If you have been receiving texts from your doctor saying you haven’t had your MMR jabs: get it booked!
If you have any doubt at all whether you’ve had yours or not: get it booked!
The MMR vaccine was introduced to the UK in 1988. If you’re older, you might have received the three vaccines separately. My mum isn’t sure whether I had mine or not, due to when I was born and where we were living at the time. My records say I haven’t, and presumably I didn’t get the separate ones either.
My doctor has been texting me links to book a vaccine appointment for a few weeks now. I booked mine for Tuesday. I was literally in and out. No hassle at all. I’ll need to find time to go back in about four weeks for the second dose.
At uni we had at least 5 drop out with mumps in the first semester.
People in this country still dont even vaccinate to stop getting shingles.
No wonder other antivaxxers are on the rise.
after the governments lied about the COVID vaccines, it isn’t shocking that people are scared to get a jab.
## Get the MMR vaccine.
All the supposed links to autism have been discredited.
The rise in autism in society is more a result of a rise in diagnosis of autism that was likely just as prevalent in past generations. It’s just our understanding and diagnosis of it wasn’t as good back then.
I’ll say it again and I’ll say it till I die. If you can get vaccinated and you don’t you’re a fucking moron!!!
I know someone that got measles. Doctors never believe them and the issues caused later in life are still a nightmare.
This will only get worse. 19 years ago, this lady’s parents were probably on the statistical fringe of people not getting vaccinated. There’s now half a generation of Facebook idiots who think the MMR vaccination is a scam by George Soros or something.
Failure to vaccinate a child should be legally regarded as neglect.
A lot of Eastern Europeans living here are not vaccinating their children. One of my closest friends is Bulgarian. She tells me with pride about how her children have only had the first three sets of vaccinations, her friends children have had none and they also don’t think the covid vaccinations are safe. It should be mandatory for everyone imo
I had measles as a baby, fortunately it doesn’t appear to have had any long term affects but my mom tells me how she was sure I wasn’t going to survive and that I had to be kept in a dark room for a time as I wasn’t allowed to be in the light. I was just unfortunate in that I contracted it before I was even due to be vaccinated so not my parents fault. It is probably because I was so young that I haven’t had any longer term issues.
Based on what my mom has told me about it I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and I think it is irresponsible not to protect against it. My brother was vaccinated as soon as he was eligible and I made sure that my son was vaccinated.
Vaccine hesitancy? Call it what it is, they were antivaxxers.
If you haven’t had your MMR or aren’t sure, your GP will be able to vaccinate you. A third dose won’t hurt you so they’d rather just jab you to make sure you are done than leave you unvaccinated. Get calling and protect yourself if your parents haven’t or you were born before MMR was the norm.
I’ve always thought that children should be able to sue their parents if they end up with health problems because of their parents’ negligence or poor decision making.
Eg, children with vaccine-preventable diseases who weren’t vaccinated, children of drug addicts who ended up with birth defects because of their mothers drug use during pregnancy (such as with FAS), children of parents who used alternative/homeopathic medicine instead of evidence based medicine, etc
Measles killed my father’s baby sister 80+ years ago. There was no way my parents were not getting me vaccinated. I thank them and that baby every time I read something like this.
Yes parents should vaccinate but she was 19 yrs old, why didn’t she go get vaccinated herself as soon as she had medical autonomy?
I am older so only had 1 jab & not even MMR back then it was MR as I am female .
I realised the second jab only came out when i was 19 and 4 yrs ago I booked myself into a 10 min Boots appointment and got my jabs updated
If you don’t give your children the MMR you are ignorant scum. End of.
No I don’t care what you read down an internet rabbit hole. Shut up. Book the vaccination today.
Vaccination is a highly beneficial practice that should be universally adopted by parents for the well-being of their children.
Take care of yourselves . You’re about to see a lot more than measles make it’s way back , and you won’t be able to blame on antivaxxers … or actually most of you probably will .
Just tell the anti-vaxxers that measles gives you AIDS.
I really want to know how her parents reacted to all this, whether they refuse to believe it’s measles and something else. That fact it’s not mentioned anywhere leads me to think they have no remorse endangering their daughter’s life and future, which is a shame. There needs to be more parents who come forward warning about the dangers of jeopardising their children.
Our baby is 10 months and we got a letter about her 12-month jabs – inviting us, if we wanted, to enrol her in a vaccine trial. One component of these is stopping being made in 2025 (pnemococcal and HiB iirc, the letter’s downstairs) and they want to see how a new replacement does. Also it gives us a free chickenpox jab if we want. Holy shit yes did we jump at the chance. Hopefully the antivaxx morons will run a mile so we can get her in.
We got our eldest the chickenpox jab privately and had already planned for youngest’s anyway so why not?
Yep, I had the mumps. I haven’t been the same since.