A heartbreaking letter from Roald Dahl makes the case for vaccinations

(Image credit: Ronald Dumont/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

published 2 February 2015

Roald Dahl had a pretty good reason to encourage parents to vaccinate their children: His daughter, Olivia, died from measles in 1962, before there was a measles vaccine.

In 1988, Dahl wrote a heartfelt letter describing the helplessness he felt after Olivia's death and encouraging parents to vaccinate their own children:

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962, because in those days, a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today, a good and safe vaccine is available to every family, and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it. [RoaldDahl.com]

Dahl goes on to describe parents refusing to vaccinate their children as "almost a crime" and reminds parents that it's "never too late" to vaccinate children. Read the letter here.