The boy behind the measles vaccine grew up to become an anti-vaxxer. Now he wants everyone to get immunised

James Glenday
May 13, 2019, updated May 13, 2019

David Edmonston was instrumental in creating the measles vaccine, but didn't vaccinate his son. Photo: James Glenday

In a house in a dense wood in a sleepy part of rural Virginia lives a soft-spoken 76-year-old who made medical history.

Cells from David Edmonston’s throat helped eliminate the measles virus from the United States.

But when the time came to vaccinate his son, Mr Edmonston and his wife decided against it.

As a boy, Mr Edmonston was sent to a boarding school near Boston in the autumn of 1953.

Within months, he had contracted measles, a highly infectious disease that made its way through the school.

Back then, it affected most people under the age of 15 and claimed between 400 to 500 lives a year in the US alone.

An extra 48,000 ended up in hospital annually.

“I was very sick but I do remember a doctor, Thomas Peebles, visiting me,” Mr Edmonston recalls.

“He asked if I would help the world, so I said yes, of course.”

He gave some blood from his left arm and gargled a “sour-milk-tasting” substance – one of many in the school to do so.

An old photograph of a young man sitting in front of a sign which reads "National Institutes of Health"

David visiting the National Institutes of Health in his youth. Photo: David Edmonston

Weeks later, a “very excited” Dr Peebles returned with good news.

He was working with Nobel Prize-winning physician John Enders, who had become famous after successfully growing the polio virus in tissue cultures.

Together, they’d been able to isolate measles virus cultures from 11-year-old David’s blood, and were confident of creating a new, world-changing vaccine.

“As a reward, they offered me a steak dinner,” Mr Edmonston said.

“But I wasn’t too keen on that, so I said no thanks.”

David chose not to vaccinate his son

A newspaper clipping from 1963 showing David Edmonston on the front page of his local paper

David was front-page news in his home town. Photo: David Edmonston

It took some time before the magnitude of what he’d been involved in really sank in.

In 1961, The New York Times declared the new vaccine was 100 per cent effective.

Named the ‘Edmonston strain’, after David, it went on to help millions around the world and was licensed in 1963.

He met the doctors just once more, during a trip arranged by TV network CBS, which produced a special show in New York, a moment Mr Edmonston now calls an “exciting few minutes of fame”.

An old photograph of three older men and one teenaged boy

David (second from right) appeared on TV with the doctors who invented the vaccine once it was launched in 1963. Photo: David Edmonston

But in the 1980s, as measles began to rapidly retreat across America, he decided not to get his son immunised.

“He remains unimmunised to this day,” Mr Edmonston admitted.

Could he have been described as an anti-vaxxer back then?

“Yes, I suppose I could have.”

His wife was a public health educator and rumours about the safety of the vaccine had concerned them.

This was before the release of now-debunked medical research that purported to show a connection between vaccinations and autism.

“I have changed my mind. I certainly now think vaccinations are a very good thing,” Mr Edmonston said.

‘It can be such a nasty disease’

A baby cries while a doctor pushes a needle into her thigh

More than 760 cases of measles have been diagnosed in the US this year, and officials say fewer people are vaccinating their children. Photo: Reuters

The United States is currently in the midst of its largest measles outbreak since 1994, even though the disease was declared “eliminated” in 2000.

At least 764 cases have been confirmed this year.

“It’s such a shame to hear because it can be such a nasty disease,” Mr Edmonston said.

My advice to anyone is: Get immunised.”

In Australia, which has a much smaller population than the US, 108 cases have been diagnosed.

In both countries, health authorities say vaccination rates for young children are high, above 90 per cent.

But the disease is frequently brought in from overseas.

Europe had at least 82,000 measles cases last year.

France, Italy, Greece and Serbia were among those affected but war-torn Ukraine, which had more than 53,000 cases, suffered worst on the continent.

Elsewhere, the World Health Organisation said Madagascar, India, Brazil, Philippines and Thailand are dealing with worsening outbreaks.

Infected travellers coming to the US or Australia have spread the disease quickly in pockets of the population where vaccination rates are lower for philosophical or religious reasons.

In New York, for example, the disease has spread among some members of the Orthodox Jewish community.

Israel had more than 2500 cases last year.

David thinks good karma played a role in vaccine’s creation

A man at a dining room table looking at newspaper clippings

David has kept newspaper articles from his childhood. Photo: ABC

Mr Edmonston has long been part of a meditation group called Science of Spirituality, which was founded in India.

Several other members live close to him in rural Virginia.

He conceded chance helped him play a role in the vaccine’s creation, because “the right samples could have come from any of the other boys who volunteered too”.

But he liked to think that a higher power may have also helped arrange things.

“I have a very strong connection to a spiritual teacher,” he said.

“I like to think that this was arranged for my good karma.

“Of course, I didn’t do very much. I simply held out my arm and gargled some awful-tasting sour milk stuff.”

The original vaccine was improved in 1968 and became known as the Edmonston-Enders strain.

In the US, it is usually combined with mumps and rubella, (MMR), or mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) in one vaccination.

-ABC