Vaccines Then And Now: Pediatrician Recalls Measles Outbreak Among the Amish

the Infectious Disease Advisor take:

It is National Immunization Awareness Month, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is highlighting a series of opinion pieces, Medicine Before Vaccines, written by senior pediatricians, to serve as a reminder what medicine was like before routine immunizations.

In this piece, written by Kathleen Braico, MD, a pediatrician who has been practicing for decades, discusses the complications related to measles in an Amish community.

"Starting our pediatric practice in the 1978, my husband and I joked we ran an infectious disease practice. Our days and nights seemed filled with patients with very serious conditions, including epiglottitis, meningitis, and chickenpox among others-which have now largely disappeared from pediatric practices due to the success of immunizations," she wrote. 

This piece serves as a good reminder to physicians why counseling about vaccines is so important. Please read the piece in it's entirety below, and weigh in on the discussion by emailing your thoughts to Infectious Disease Advisor's digital content editor, Colleen Hall, at  [email protected]