In February 2025, a 6-year-old child died of measles in Texas, marking the first death from the disease in the United States in a decade. Shortly after that, another school-age child died from it. Many others have become severely ill. A 7-year-old in South Carolina was recently hospitalized with brain swelling.
On Instagram, where people posted about the deaths and hospitalizations, I saw comments about the parents: “Is she fit to be a mom?” “Their children should be taken away.” “Parents should be arrested for manslaughter.”
I read these comments with a sinking feeling, because those children could have been me. Those parents could have been my parents. I was not vaccinated until the age of 23. Learning why my mother didn’t vaccinate me, and then choosing to vaccinate myself, has led me on a lifelong journey in understanding how love and fear intertwine and what it really takes for people to change their minds.
I was born in 1988, the first of two children. When the pediatrician brought up vaccines, my mom felt that my doctor rushed through her questions, that for him, vaccinating me was just another box to check. Because of insurance and transportation issues, she wasn’t able to follow up with a different pediatrician for a second opinion.
She remembers finding a pamphlet someone had left in the doctor’s office waiting room that recounted stories of children harmed by vaccines. She found more pamphlets and books after that.
She weighed what she understood to be the two risks: the diseases themselves versus the vaccines meant to prevent them. She chose the option that seemed less scary. “I came to my decision based on the way I felt inside,” she told me when I asked her recently why she didn’t vaccinate me. “I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Luckily, other children got vaccinated, and I benefited from the community immunity to diseases like measles that so many of us now take for granted (and which we are losing today). As I got older, my world expanded. I met people whose lives looked different from mine. I fell in love with science.
Science gave me data, but like many people, I found that alone wasn’t enough to change my mind. Science also gave me new stories and relationships that contrasted with the anti-vaccine viewpoints of my childhood. I heard about diseases that once filled hospital wards and led to early childhood death. I became friends with people using science to try to make the world better. Eventually, the stories I had grown up with that said scientists were corrupt and that vaccines were worse than the diseases they protect against no longer held up to my scrutiny.
Shortly before I began my Ph.D. research in an immunology lab, I walked into a doctor’s office and asked to be vaccinated.
By this point, I was very angry.
I was angry that my mother fell for lies. Angry that she had risked my health. Angry that I now had to spend time and money catching up on two decades of missed protection.
But I also loved her and feared her reaction to my getting vaccinated. I waited months to tell her.
Eight years after I was vaccinated, I called my mother to tell her I was pregnant with my first child. She asked me whether I planned to vaccinate the baby.
I hung up, furious and hurt that she still didn’t understand why, after studying immunology, I was confident that the benefits of vaccines outweigh their risks.
Then my son was born.
They placed him on my chest and my heart exploded with love. Suddenly, discussions of relative risk and statistical significance meant nothing compared with the steady rise and fall of his chest.
The next day, a nurse asked whether he could receive his hepatitis B vaccine, and I hesitated.
I had hemorrhaged twice during delivery, lost three liters of blood, and needed multiple transfusions. I was physically and emotionally depleted. In that one exhausted moment, what was loudest in my head was not the science I knew so well. It was the stories I had heard growing up.
Delaying the vaccine felt easier than deciding. I initially told the nurse we would do the vaccine at his first pediatrician’s visit in a few days.
It wasn’t until the day we were getting discharged that something shifted. I spoke to a friend about my decision to delay. She didn’t overwhelm me with studies. She didn’t shame me. She was kind and empathetic. She affirmed my desire to be a good mom, and reminded me that even though I was negative for hepatitis B, we didn’t know the status of all possible caregivers.
We vaccinated him before we left the hospital.
As we drove home, I thought of my mother. Even with everything I knew about science, I had hesitated. My mother didn’t have anyone she trusted to help answer her questions, and almost everyone makes decisions influenced by emotions.
We like to believe that facts are enough. But research shows that giving people more data rarely convinces them; instead, it’s empathetic conversations and trusted messengers that can reduce vaccine hesitancy. My mom chose not to vaccinate me because she heard stories of danger. I was compelled to vaccinate because I trusted people who shared stories of protection.
When I hear stories about children getting sick from measles, I feel angry. But not at the parents. I’m frustrated at those knowingly spreading false and misleading claims, and profiting from it. Shaming and dismissing parents who are confused and trying their best won’t change minds. Instead, it can drive people deeper into communities that validate their beliefs and create echo chambers filled with inaccuracy. We have to meet parents’ concerns with empathy. That’s where real change begins.
My mother didn’t vaccinate me because she loved me.
In her mind, declining vaccinations was not negligence; it was her way of being a good parent. I don’t think sharing statistics about measles mortality would have changed her mind. And I no longer view her decision as a moral failure.
But I understand the science, and I had people who helped me navigate my shifting mind-set with kindness. And so I chose to vaccinate my two children. My reason was the same as my mother’s: I love them deeply.
Elisabeth Marnik is the executive director of The Evidence Collective, a network of scientists and clinicians helping communities combat health falsehoods online and in person.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post I’m an Immunologist. I Grew Up Unvaccinated. appeared first on New York Times.
