Immunity in Action

One of humanity’s frailties is our tendency to view the world through the lens of what we’ve seen, lived through or experienced firsthand. That’s not to say we ignore things that happened in the past, but we may not give historical events equal weight or importance when compared to current events. In medicine, it’s important for us to learn from the past. In this episode, we reflect on the improvements in vaccination over the years and discuss how vaccine technology has had an incredible impact on global child heath over the last century.

Many current doctors have never treated some of these vaccine-preventable diseases firsthand, but our three expert guests for this episode have. James Todd, MD, and Mimi Glode, MD, worked for decades at Children’s Hospital Colorado in infectious disease care. Dr. Todd is professor emeritus and Dr. Glode is professor emerita at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Todd directed our department of epidemiology, and Dr. Glode directed our pediatrics residency program. Our third guest, Dr. Edwin Asturias, specializes in infectious diseases and is a professor of pediatrics. He helps direct our global health programs, has led many international vaccine research projects and currently serves as voting member of the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP).

In this episode our infectious disease experts discuss:

• Their experiences treating patients with infections, such as chickenpox, meningitis and measles
• Ideas on navigating current vaccine skepticism across the healthcare landscape
• The changing attitudes of parents toward pediatric vaccines over time
• Learning how this history can help inform current infectious disease treatment