“Protecting Health: Saving Lives” Thirty years ago, when Dr. Deborah Wexler was providing health care to Hmong refugee families in St. Paul, Minnesota, she found most of her young patients to be under vaccinated. That year, 1990, many Hmong children became infected with measles, and three died from complications of the disease. Wexler’s response was to found the Immunization Action Coalition or IAC. The story of immunization in the U.S. is one of tremendous success. In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in this country. Yet today there is a growing vocal opposition to vaccination, and the U.S. could lose its World Health Organization status as a country that has eliminated measles because of outbreaks this year. In a way, Dr. Wexler finds herself back where she started thirty years ago, doing all she can to fight the dangerous return of preventable diseases.
