Today, I am thankful for those who champion for the health of our children.
On this day (Apr 29), I continue to laud the efforts behind World Immunization Week (WIW) by sharing with you the progress of vaccination in the United States.
Jenner’s vaccine against small pox gave the world hope that other diseases might be tackled through the power of vaccination. Progress made by Louis Pasteur and others in the middle of the 19th Centire led to the development of additional vaccines against 4 other human or animal targets: rabies, typhoid fever, cholera, and anthrax. However, vaccination did not really hit its stride until the late 1940s and early 1950s. At that time, the advancement of a combination vaccine against 3 deadly diseases (diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus [DPT]) and the Salk polio vaccine breakthrough were the true impetus that heralded the birth of modern vaccinology. These efforts catapulted individuals like Maurice Hilleman to relentlessly pursue a wide array of pediatric vaccine targets, starting with a live attenuated measles vaccine in 1963. In fact, by 1990, the US had 9 bacterial or viral targets for which a vaccine was routinely recommended for use in pediatric patients by 1990 (smallpox, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, and Haemophilus influenzae B). If one looks at the data from those campaigns, one can paint a clearer picture as to how vaccines fundamentally transformed pediatric health by the end of the 20th Century. Although smallpox is the only vaccine whose use has been discontinued due to disease eradication, the number of cases for each of the other 8 targets has also been significantly curtailed. In fact, data from the US Center for Disease Control provides evidence as to how vaccines reduced significant morbidity for each of the other 8 diseases by at least 96%.
But, this was not done without the efforts of many. Today, I wanted to herald a person who is no longer with us, but who deserves our respect and admiration.
When Betty Bumpers passed away in 2018, few heralded her passing. Today, I want to publicly acknowledge her for how she changed our nation. As the wife of Arkansas governor, Dale Bumpers, Betty initiated a statewide campaign to vaccinate all of Arkansas’ children. Entitled Every Child by ’74, Betty corralled her state government, medical professional organizations, and other Arkansans to help deliver immunizations to their youth. By 1975, Arkansas had transformed its statewide rates of childhood immunizations from one of the lowest to the one of the highest in the nation. But, Betty’s crusade did not stop in Arkansas. When her husband became a US Senator in 1975, Betty pursued a nationwide program for immunization. Enlisting the support of the newly incumbent First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, Betty commenced a campaign to convince every state to require its children to be immunized prior to entering school. By 1979, they had achieved their goal of having all 50 US states enact legislation requiring immunization prior to school entry.
But, the crusade was still not over. In the early 1990s, Betty & Rosalynn took this campaign one step further to create an organization, called Every Child by Two, to ensure immunizations occur in preschool children, who obviously also carry risk of developing vaccine-preventable diseases. By 2012, each US state had achieved over 90% immunization rates for DTP, polio, MMR, and Hepatitis B in toddlers and infants less than 2 years of age. In 2014, it is estimated that the number of US children that had received no vaccinations at all was reduced to less than 1%.
Betty Bumpers indeed changed the world. I’m grateful for all her efforts to put pediatric health on the forefront of the American agenda.
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