Dianne Feinstein’s struggle with shingles reflects the long increase in cases
The trailblazing life of Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who died on Friday, covers nearly a century of American history, including changes in health care and medicine. Her struggle with shingles, which sent her to the hospital in February and contributed to the deterioration of her health — leading to encephalitis and facial paralysis — also reflects the great shifts regarding that disease.
Shingles occurs as a reactivation of the chickenpox virus (varicella-zoster virus, or VZV), one that had yet to be isolated when Feinstein was born (it was in 1953), and caused 3 million cases a year until the 1990s.
