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In January 2015 an open letter attributed to author Roald Dahl (best known for the classic children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) titled Measles: A Dangerous Illness was widely circulated online due to a then-current measles outbreak that had prompted renewed debate over the importance of childhood vaccinations. It urged parents in no uncertain terms to ensure their children were immunized against that contagion. Example: Dahl indeed penned that letter back in 1988 for the Sandwell Health Authority in Britain shortly after a controversial measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) was introduced to the UK. Because much of the public was worried about the new vaccine, Dahl provided a personal account about the death of his 7-year-old daughter Olivia from measles in 1962 to persuade parents to get their children vaccinated: Dahl was a proponent of immunization, but he rarely spoke about his daughter's death. He wrote the following heartbreaking account of taking his daughter into hospital after she had collapsed at home: In a 1997 article published in People magazine, Dahl's wife, Patricia Neal, wrote Olivia's death in 1962 had practically driven the author insane: Roald Dahl's open letter was penned in 1988 but it is still frequently used as a vaccination encouragement tool by medical campaign groups such as the Encephalitis Society and the Oxford Vaccine Group.
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