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IAC Publicity
News reports and awards
Sabin Vaccine Report
Sabin Vaccine Institute Salutes Deborah Wexler, MD
Immunization Action Coalition Founder Turns
Community Outreach into National Forum
 Deborah Wexler, MD believes in being well
informed. Her work, her passion, and her life is seeing to it that healthcare
providers—along with an often misinformed public—are well informed about
immunizations and the catastrophes that can result when complacency sets in on
this health topic.
Dr. Wexler is the founder and executive director of the Immunization Action
Coalition (IAC), a nonprofit organization she started from grassroot efforts to
boost immunization rates and thus prevent disease. Today it is an information
clearinghouse helping healthcare providers to stay abreast of immunization
requirements, benefits, and breakthroughs. The information published by IAC is
available on the organization’s website www.immunize.org and includes pediatric
and adult immunization schedules and practical vaccine information and
guidelines not only for physicians but for the public as well. In fact, some of
the information has been translated into 29 languages!
Dr. Wexler graduated from the University of Minnesota with an undergraduate
degree in biology in 1975 and a medical degree in 1982. As a medical resident in
the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Department of Family Medicine and
Practice, she trained at the community-based program in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
There she became interested in hepatitis B prevention as she treated refugees
from Southeast Asia, where there is a high rate of hepatitis B infection. She
developed a clinic-wide tracking system to ensure that these refugees received
vaccinations against hepatitis B or were followed for liver disease.
In 1988, while working at a community health center in St. Paul, Minnesota, she
again treated refugees regularly and discovered that most of the refugees and
their children citywide were not getting screened for or vaccinated against
hepatitis B.
Because of this, Dr. Wexler and other public health and healthcare professionals
formed the Hepatitis B Coalition. The Hepatitis B Coalition promotes hepatitis B
vaccination for all children up to 18 years of age, screening for all pregnant
women, testing and vaccination for high-risk groups, and education and treatment
for people who are chronically infected with hepatitis B. In 1994, the Hepatitis
B Coalition became an official program of IAC when IAC was granted tax exempt
status.
IAC has grown from having just one staff member to an operation of eight
full-time and two part-time employees, with several consultants who assist in
program development, grant writing, and web site development. Today the IAC has
a $1 million budget.
A major focus of the IAC is its publication of three newsletters twice a year
which provide helpful, practical immunization information for health
professionals and the public. NEEDLE TIPS (illustrated by Dr. Wexler’s children)
is a 28-page newsletter mailed to 200,000 health professionals; VACCINATE
ADULTS! is mailed to 180,000 adult medicine specialists; and VACCINATE WOMEN is
mailed to 35,000 obstetrician/gynecologists and others who are concerned with
women’s health issues. All IAC’s information is available on the main web site,
www.immunize.org, which provides links to the other websites maintained by the
IAC, www.vaccineinformation.org, www.izcoalitions.org, as well as
www.hepprograms.org.
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