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A New Year 2025!
As college & professional football teams jockey for an opportunity to prove their athletic & strategic dominance, other not so fun menaces have invaded humanity’s peace. From horrendous storms, wildfires, good/bad election results, and assaults on the innocent, to resurging diseases, we strive for answers. We wonder how we can garner some meaningful control to prevent the pain, to protect our loved ones, to protect our communities and ourselves.
As we surrender to the unpredictable and unpreventable, is it possible to direct our intellect, cooperation and energy toward risk reduction and creative solutions?
Regarding human health, fortunately we do have influence of varying degrees on outcomes.
In the specific case of infectious disease prevention, those pathogens we’ve gotten ahead of with vaccine research, development, and launch, we have taken back some control. There are some diseases and profound devastation we have ameliorated or eradicated completely through immunization. Smallpox for example, is just one remarkable story of a human health/public health triumph. Utilizing the scientific method to discover answers to questions and implementing rigorous clinical testing methodology, vaccines, although imperfect, have well documented evidence of giving humans some control back over at least some of these nefarious invaders.
By teaching our own immune systems what to watch for and be prepared for we naturally learn how to create our personal army of homeland security agents. Brilliant and clever strategic moves are needed to outsmart the lowly viruses and bacteria who are too small to see and avoid plus they have the unfortunate capacity to rapidly mutate.
The current cultural & political environment has unfortunately clouded our understanding and appreciation for these incredible achievements of human ingenuity. Putting aside the desire to beat our political rivals and ignoring the polarizing bots, humanity has an opportunity to elevate themselves in collaboration instead. By focusing on the epidemiological evidence, where we are now vs. where we were, comprehending what the real-world data shows us, we can embrace what today’s vaccines mean for us all. We can beat our common enemy, the pathogen. We can protect human life through immunization. New and emerging menaces are just around the corner, and we’ll need to conquer those next. Therefore, let’s eliminate the ones we have the ability to, right now, with the vaccines we have right now. Measles Graph source.
A great place to start would be for patients to familiarize themselves with their own immunization status.
Physicians, do you or your patients need more information regarding immunization records, particularly adults? In addition to the usual sources of vaccine records, several state health departments have immunization registries that can be checked. It may be particularly helpful when trying to confirm if a new mother had RSV vaccine or not, then pediatricians can determine if the newborn needs Beyfortus, nirsevimab-alip.
Here are a few examples of state immunization/vaccination registries:
California’s Digital Vaccine Record ( DVR ) registry
FloridaShots keeping shots in check
Kansas KSWebIZ
Medical groups needing free access to vaccine contracts or vaccine discounts with Sanofi, Merck, GSK, Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax, Dynavax, Bavarian Nordic, CSL Seqirus etc…may do so through The Physician Buying Group PracticeWell. Join PracticeWell today and we can get your immunization program underway!