Elena Conis | |
---|---|
Occupation(s) | Professor, Journalist |
Title | Associate Professor of Journalism |
Academic background | |
Education | Columbia University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (MA) University of California, San Francisco (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History |
Sub-discipline | History of the Environment,Public Health,and Medicine,in the 19th and 20th centuries,United States |
Institutions | University of California,Berkeley (2016–present) University of California,San Francisco (2016–present) Emory University (2009–2016) The Los Angeles Times (2003–2011) |
Elena Conis is an American writer and historian of medicine. [1] Her work focuses on the history of medicine,public health,and the environment,with particular focuses on the history of vaccination,infectious diseases,and pesticides. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California,Berkeley. [1]
Elena Conis received her bachelor's degree in biology from Columbia University in 1996, [2] followed by master's degrees in global health and environment and journalism from the University of California,Berkeley. While studying at Berkeley,she began to work as a columnist and features writer for the Los Angeles Times . An award-winning health journalist,she wrote for the paper's "Esoterica Medica","Nutrition Lab",and "Supplements" columns until 2011. [1] [3]
After completing her PhD in the history of health sciences at the University of California,San Francisco,Conis joined the faculty of Emory University as an assistant professor in the Department of History and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Faculty Fellow in Health and the Humanities. [4] She taught undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of health,medicine,and the environment. In 2016,Conis was a Cain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Science History Institute. [5]
Conis is most prominently known for her 2015 book,Vaccine Nation:America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization, [6] [7] which was awarded the Arthur J. Viseltear Prize from the American Public Health Association. [1]
Conis is currently Associate Professor of Journalism in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California,Berkeley,where she directs the joint master’s program in journalism and public health (MJ / MPH). [1] [8] She is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Science,Technology,Medicine,and Society;the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine;and the Department of Media Studies,at the University of California,Berkeley. [9] [10] [11] She is also affiliated faculty of the Department of Humanities and Social Science at the University of California,San Francisco. [12]
Edward Jenner was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. However, some diseases, such as measles outbreaks in America, have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates in the 2010s – attributed, in part, to vaccine hesitancy. According to the World Health Organization, vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year.
Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis (polio). Two types are used: an inactivated poliovirus given by injection (IPV) and a weakened poliovirus given by mouth (OPV). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends all children be fully vaccinated against polio. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world, and reduced the number of cases reported each year from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 33 in 2018.
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is a graduate professional school on the campus of University of California, Berkeley. It is designed to produce journalists with a two-year Master of Journalism (MJ) degree. It also offers a summer minor in journalism to undergraduates and a journalism certificate option to non–UC Berkeley students.
Donald Ainslie Henderson was an American medical doctor, educator, and epidemiologist who directed a 10-year international effort (1967–1977) that eradicated smallpox throughout the world and launched international childhood vaccination programs. From 1977 to 1990, he was Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Later, he played a leading role in instigating national programs for public health preparedness and response following biological attacks and national disasters. At the time of his death, he was Professor and Dean Emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Distinguished Scholar at the UPMC Center for Health Security.
Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use, or using certain vaccines but not others. Although adverse effects associated with vaccines are occasionally observed, the scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats.
A vaccine adverse event (VAE), sometimes referred to as a vaccine injury, is an adverse event believed to have been caused by vaccination. The World Health Organization (WHO) knows VAEs as Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI).
Paul D. Thacker is an American journalist who reports on science, medicine, and the environment. He was a lead investigator of the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Senator Chuck Grassley, where he examined financial links between physicians and pharmaceutical companies.
Hepatitis B vaccine is a vaccine that prevents hepatitis B. The first dose is recommended within 24 hours of birth with either two or three more doses given after that. This includes those with poor immune function such as from HIV/AIDS and those born premature. It is also recommended that health-care workers be vaccinated. In healthy people, routine immunization results in more than 95% of people being protected.
Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper, authored by discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet, falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccine activists.
A vaccination policy is a health policy adopted in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease. These policies are generally put into place by state or local governments, but may also be set by private facilities, such as workplaces or schools. Many policies have been developed and implemented since vaccines were first made widely available.
Yellow fever vaccine is a vaccine that protects against yellow fever. Yellow fever is a viral infection that occurs in Africa and South America. Most people begin to develop immunity within ten days of vaccination and 99% are protected within one month, and this appears to be lifelong. The vaccine can be used to control outbreaks of disease. It is given either by injection into a muscle or just under the skin.
Walter A. Orenstein served as the director of the United States' National Immunization Program, from May 1993 to January 2004.
Dorit Rubinstein Reiss is a Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey '50 Chair of Litigation at UC Hastings College of Law. She has also worked for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israeli Ministry of Justice's Department of Public Law.
Anti-vaccinationism in chiropractic is widespread, but there are notable differences within the trade. Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine founded on the idea that all disease is caused by disruption of the flow of "innate" in the spine, by so-called vertebral subluxations – a pseudoscientific concept. Over time chiropractic has divided into "straights" who adhere to the subluxation theory and "mixers" who adhere more closely to a reality-based view of anatomy. "Straight" chiropractors are very likely to be anti-vaccination, but all chiropractic training tends to reduce acceptance of vaccines.
Vaccination policy of the United States is the subset of U.S. federal health policy that deals with immunization against infectious disease. It is decided at various levels of the government, including the individual states. This policy has been developed over the approximately two centuries since the invention of vaccination with the purpose of eradicating disease from the U.S. population, or creating a herd immunity. Policies intended to encourage vaccination impact numerous areas of law, including regulation of vaccine safety, funding of vaccination programs, vaccine mandates, adverse event reporting requirements, and compensation for injuries asserted to be associated with vaccination.
Shabir Ahmed Madhi, is a South African physician who is professor of vaccinology and director of the South African Medical Research Council Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, and National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Technology Research Chair in Vaccine Preventable Diseases. In January 2021, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Wellbee was an American cartoon character and public health mascot that first appeared in 1962. He was an anthropomorphic bumblebee created by Hollywood artist Harold M. Walker at the request of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) public information officer George M. Stenhouse. The character became CDC's national symbol of public health at the time, and was widely used to promote immunization and other public health campaigns in the United States following the Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962.
War Against Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the Global Spread of Vaccination is a 2020 book by historian and academic Michael J. Bennett. It describes "the devastating and disfiguring impact of smallpox still at large "in the shrinking eighteenth-century globe." It shows how increasing recourse to smallpox inoculation, a risky procedure, prompted Edward Jenner's early experimentation with cowpox as a prophylaxis for smallpox.