Vaccines and Mother’s Day

Last year, we found several connections between Father’s Day and vaccines, especially that Maurice Hilleman has often been called the father of modern vaccines.

Is there a mother of modern vaccines?

Vaccines and Mother’s Day

Does it have to be modern vaccines?

Of course, the first person that comes to mind is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who learned about smallpox inoculation in Turkey and used it to protect her own children, also advocating for more general use in England.

But that involved variolation, not vaccination.

So who could be the mother of vaccines?

How about the person who “has done more for immunizations that any one person in this whole country?”

Betty Bumpers was a champion in our efforts to reduce the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases among children in the United States.  She played a major leadership role as 1^st Lady of Arkansas in improving immunization in that state and was inspirational in launching the first major Presidential Initiative on Immunization during the late 1970s.  She continued to be a major immunization advocate through much of her life launching “Every Child By Two (ECBT)” which she chaired along with Mrs. Rosalyn Carter, now “Vaccinate Your Family”.

Walter Orenstein

And to honor her, let’s continue her work…

For as Betty Bumpers said, “only when every child has completed his or her series of immunizations will our job be completed.”

More on Vaccines and Mother’s Day

• A Mother’s Day Message from Zoe Saldana
• In Memory of Betty Bumpers
• Unicef’s Mother’s Day vaccine pack
• Polio vaccines to protect 100 children
• This Mother’s Day, Give Your Kids a Shot at a Healthy Future
• What my polio-stricken mother would tell parents today about the importance of immunization
• A Mother’s Love Knows No Bounds
• A tale of two mothers
• A Pakistani Mother: Unstoppable, Even by Polio
• A Mother I Never Met Changed My Mind About Vaccines
• The Vaccine Mom on the Power of Information
• Pearl Kendrick, Grace Eldering, and the Pertussis Vaccine
• My Polio, My Mother’s Choice
• VAXOPEDIA – Father’s Day and Vaccines – What’s the Connection?