As U.S. measles infections spread, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a Fox Nation interview there could be some health benefits to getting the measles.

During the March 4 episode, Fox’s chief medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel asked Kennedy about people attending measles parties to get infected. Kennedy said that he advises against people attending these parties, but also said there could be benefits to “wild infection.”

Kennedy said:

I went to measles parties when I was a kid. I went to a chicken pox party, and I had natural immunity. And there’s a lot of studies out there that show that if you actually do get the wild infection, you’re protected later. It boosts your immune system later in life against cancers, atopic diseases, cardiac disease, etc. It’s not well-studied. It ought to be well-studied because we ought to understand those relationships … but I would never advise somebody to get sick. But … what we need is good science on all of these things so that people can make rational choices.

It’s unclear what studies Kennedy was referencing. The Health and Human Services Department did not respond to a PolitiFact email seeking clarity.

The studies we found showed that research has been inconclusive about any potential links between measles infections and protection from other diseases. Meanwhile, other studies show the virus can suppress a person’s immune system for several years. Because of measles’ dangerous risks — hospitalization, brain damage and death — health experts recommend vaccination to prevent the virus.

As of March 18, Texas has reported 279 measles cases, resulting in 36 hospitalizations and a child’s death. Including Texas, 14 states had reported 301 confirmed cases as of March 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Measles killed about 107,500 people worldwide in 2023. Deaths from measles are not common in the U.S. because of widespread vaccination. In addition to the Texas death, authorities were investigating after a New Mexico adult who died tested positive for measles.

The bottom line, experts say, is that getting infected with measles can pose serious health risks for people that they wouldn’t face if they were vaccinated. Two doses of the measles vaccine is 97% effective in preventing the virus.

Studies’ limitations and varying results

Science Feedback, a publication that fact-checks scientific claims, researched social media claims similar to Kennedy’s statement and found one post citing a 1998 study in what was then a non-peer-reviewed publication about a lower risk of adult cancer for people who had measles. Another post credited a 2015 study about measles and decreased cardiac disease mortality in Japanese adults.

Both studies had limitations, Science Feedback found, including that they were based on self-reporting through surveys. Neither study proved causation.

Here were the other studies about measles infections and possible effects on cancer and cardiac disease we found:

• A 2000 United Kingdom study said childhood infections, including measles, are associated with a lower risk of Hodgkin’s disease, a type of cancer. But it didn’t prove causation.
• A 2013 European study of 1,142 people born in 1947 in England’s Newcastle upon Tyne said childhood infection with measles and influenza was associated with a reduced risk of death from cancer in adulthood, but also said further studies were required to confirm the associations.

The 2013 study’s lead author, Peter Tennant, told PolitiFact it was “hypothesis generating” rather than proof of anything.

“Further studies would indeed be required to establish the associations we observe, but I’m not aware of anything similar having been done since,” said Tennant, a University of Leeds associate professor of health data science. “Unfortunately, there are very few datasets where it’s possible to conduct a study of this kind.”

Tennant’s study found measles and flu were associated with modestly lower risks of death from cancer, and that whooping cough was strongly associated with higher risks of cancer. Because it shows good and bad outcomes for different conditions, “it cannot be said to support Robert Kennedy’s assertion,” Tennant said.

Other researchers have debated whether a measles infection contributes to cancer.

As for atopic diseases — allergic conditions linked to immune system issues —  Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said Kennedy likely was referring to a 1996 study in West Africa that found measles infection may prevent atopy in African children.

“That study has not been replicated and other studies have drawn the opposite conclusion,” Adalja said, pointing to this 2000 study.

Risks from measles infection

Health experts said there’s no question that natural immunity from measles can provide long-lasting defense against future measles infections. But purposely getting infected carries risk of serious illness or death. Most people will recover, but studies show that measles can lead to higher risk of other infectious diseases in part because of its toll on the immune system.

“There is a cost in terms of diminished responses to other infections for several years,” said North Carolina University professor Dr. David Wohl.

Wohl pointed to a 2012 study in macaque monkeys that concluded that a measles infection “wipes out immunological memory” of previous viruses encountered and leaves people susceptible to infections “that would normally be controlled by the immune system.”

The phenomenon is often called “immune amnesia.”

Infection “resets our immune system and depletes cells that recognize and respond to other pathogens,” Wohl said.

No such phenomenon occurs following the measles vaccine, he said.

Some studies show “measles virus infection temporarily suppresses the immune system and leads to a loss of the diversity and abundance of pre-existing antibodies, thus increasing the risk of other infections,” said Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor Dr. William Moss.

Three studies show that immune amnesia lasts up to three years after a measles infection, said Dr. David Gorski, a Michigan cancer surgeon who also blogs about medical claims.

One 2019 study examined 77 unvaccinated children in the Netherlands before a measles infection and two months after. It found the virus eliminated 11% to 73% of the person’s antibodies. The same effect was not seen in vaccinated children, the study said.

Gorski was not aware of any studies that support Kennedy’s claim.

Measles symptoms are generally mild for most people, including a high fever, runny nose and a skin rash. But for patients who are more vulnerable, the outcome can be traumatic.

“No parent wants to see their child end up in hospital, yet children who get measles have a 1 in 5 chance of being hospitalized,” World Health Organization spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris said in an email. About 1 in 20 people infected get pneumonia and 1 in 1,000 develop encephalitis, a brain infection, she said.

Patricia Stinchfield, the immediate past-president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said taking a chance on natural infection rather than vaccination “would be like playing infectious disease roulette.”

“Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000 thanks to vaccination. We do not need to see anyone unnecessarily suffer and die a preventable death, and we certainly should not encourage disease over vaccination,” she said.

Our ruling

Kennedy said “a lot of studies” show that getting measles “boosts your immune system later in life against cancers, atopic diseases, cardiac disease.”

Experts said research on this topic is not conclusive. Some studies have shown an association between measles infections and improved outcomes against those diseases later in life, but that research had limitations and none proved that measles caused those outcomes.

More conclusive studies show that measles infections can suppress people’s immune systems for up to three years, putting them at risk for other infectious diseases. The measles virus can also cause serious health consequences or end in death. Health experts overwhelmingly recommend vaccination over natural immunity.

We rate this claim False.

This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.