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 recognize the vaccine preventable diseases we combatted in the past and apply those lessons to the future. In this episode, we reflect on the improvements and discuss how vaccine technology has improved global child heath over the last century.

Many current doctors have never treated some of these diseases firsthand but our three experts for this episode have. Drs. Jim Todd and Mimi Glode worked for decades at Children’s Hospital Colorado in infectious diseases. 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).

Some highlights from this episode include:

• Their experiences treating patients with infections, such as chicken pox, meningitis and measles
• Navigating current vaccine skepticism across the healthcare landscape
• The changing attitudes of parents to toward pediatric vaccines over time
• Learning how this history can help inform current infectious diseases

For more information on Children’s Colorado, visit: childrenscolorado.org.