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, Voices for Vaccines has worked hard on assembling our team. Part of the team is the larger network of vaccine advocacy organizations that have mentored us and collaborated with us […]
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, even if it is just as “the guy who wrote that fraudulent paper claiming vaccines cause autism.” And everyone has a deep familiarity with the needless controversy he sparked concerning […]
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 in the state in nearly 30 years, and that last outbreak occurred during a time when measles was still endemic in the United States and only one dose of the […]
The headlines last week were nearly catastrophic, declaring that HHS Secretary Tom Price had made statements about letting states do whatever they want to as far as requiring vaccines. And almost immediately, my podcast co-host (Dr. Nathan Boonstra) and I wondered if we missed anything because we weren’t feeling the sense of impending doom the headlines […]
A few months ago, I came across an article claiming that we can blame the anti-vaccine movement for the mumps cases popping up in college campuses and communities across the country. As much as I wanted to have a villain to blame for outbreaks, I also needed to make sure that all my assertions were based […]
I’ve got a secret to tell you. All those “I voted” stickers you see on election day? Those aren’t your reward for voting. You might really, really love stickers, but they actually serve to make you a walking billboard for democracy. Those stickers remind everyone you see that they, too, should vote. They both reflect […]
August is National Immunization Awareness Month, and we hope your social media feeds have been inundated with vaccine talk. But we need to remember that people need vaccines all year long. It’s just about time for you to take your family for a flu shot, and babies receive the bulk of their protection against 14 diseases […]
If you are on Facebook or Twitter in the next month, you might notice measles, influenza, mumps, and polio cropping up on profile pictures and cover photos. Fortunately, these diseases are pictorial only and aren’t infectious. But they are spreading a good cause. Friends of Voices for Vaccines are changing these Twitter or Facebook pictures […]
In 2013, Voices for Vaccines was relaunched as an organization by parents and for parents, an organization that gave vaccinating parents a voice in the conversation about immunization. Until then, the discussion was dominated by public health officials, scientists, and healthcare workers on the one hand and anti-vaccine parents on the other. Since our relaunch, […]