If you’re a nurse born after the mid-1950s, it’s unlikely you’ve ever seen a case of measles, until perhaps recently, when a resurgence of this deadly disease started making news across the United States. You may have heard about measles and other infectious diseases in nursing school, but all that textbook knowledge counts for little compared with actually seeing the clinical consequences of these diseases—the high fevers, the violent coughs, the itching rash.
You may have worked through the AIDS epidemic before we knew it was caused by a virus. You likely worked through the COVID pandemic. As a nurse, you know how quickly infectious diseases can spread and how deadly they can be. But like many of us, you may not know what life was like before vaccines. Like many of us, you may take for granted their protection. But I don’t. I remember.
I remember having chickenpox and mumps—the illness, the pain, the missed school days, and the isolation. But I was lucky enough to survive; some were not. I remember, too, standing in a long line at my elementary school to receive the early polio vaccine. I remember the relief my parents expressed that my sister and I were now protected against this disease that had recently taken the life of a neighborhood child around my age.
These stories are important for the reason I mentioned above: Not everyone remembers, and people like me need to tell their stories. That’s the mission of Grandparents for Vaccines (GFV), a new organization I volunteer for. I’m a nurse and a grandmother now, too. Many of us at GFV have grandchildren, but other members don’t. We’re people of all ages and professions, or simply caring adults who fear for what will happen to the children in our communities as vaccination rates continue to drop.
Where I live, for example, in Cape May County, only about 89% of our children received the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended vaccines during the 2024–2025 school year, according to New Jersey’s immunization status report. As nurses, we know that diseases like measles require around 95% of the population to be immune to prevent outbreaks.
Our voices at GFV are growing, but we need more. We need adults of all ages, especially those who remember those early epidemics before vaccines became available. We need people who know how deadly those diseases can be and the value of prevention. We need people of all colors and races who know and who remember. We need you—your expertise and your stories. Please consider adding your voice to ours. To learn more, visit grandparentsforvaccines.com/.
Gail Molnar Pfeifer is a New Jersey State Leader with Grandparents for Vaccines, a national, nonpartisan organization mobilizing grandparents to protect children’s health through evidence-based immunization, intergenerational storytelling, and trusted partnerships with pediatric healthcare professionals. She is an experienced critical care nurse, medical writer and editor.
References
New Jersey Department of Health. Number and percentage of children meeting all immunization requirements by grade type and county, New Jersey, 2024-2025. nj.gov/health/cd/documents/status_report/2025/public_vac.pdf
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. How herd immunity works. February 2025. historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/what-do-vaccines-do/how-herd-immunity-works
