Lasting Scars from Chickenpox
It all began on a warm afternoon in May of 1996. My 6-year-old daughter was swinging on her swing set when she suddenly stopped and,…
Protection Begins Before Birth
I remember during my second pregnancy seeing an ad informing me that I could pass along whooping cough to my baby. At the time, I…
Vaccines and Beating the Odds
Vaccines are literally a life or death situation for people like my father, who battled stage 4 leukemia after being given six weeks to live…
Oh, baby! It’s National Immunization Awareness Month!
August is National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM), a month that is akin to St. Patrick's Day, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July all rolled into one…
Hitting the Road to Advocate for Immunization
The vast majority of pro-vaxxers are content advocating behind a screen--whether they are emailing lawmakers, commenting on social media, or sharing online articles. But when…
Working Together
Keeping communities free from vaccine-preventable disease is teamwork. As it turns out, advocating for on-time immunization is also team work. Over the past few years,…
Autism’s Professor Harold Hill
It's hard to talk about vaccines or autism without mentioning the sometime gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield. Almost everyone has at least a passing familiarity with Wakefield,…
Measles in Minnesota
Yesterday afternoon, the Minnesota Department of Health reported that 60 people (mostly children) in four counties across the state. This measles outbreak is the worst…
Mikey and His Grandma: A Vaccine Story
“Mandy, can he try Jello?” my mother asks me conspiratorially, as she cuddles her last grandchild in her arms at the Chinese buffet. Mikey Wale…
What are these diseases we vaccinate against?
When I first had babies, long before I became The Vaccine Lady, I took my children to be immunized as a matter of course, without…
