| St. Paul Pioneer Press News Articles
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| Immunization Coalition Gets Shot in
Arm |
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| The St. Paul-based Immunization Action Coalition has
been awarded another grant - $900,000 over three years - from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta. |
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| The money will enable the small nonprofit organization to continue disseminating
immunization information to health care workers around the world. The coalition's seven
employees publish two popular newsletters, host a Web page (www.immunize.org) and
operate an Internet news service. |
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| "We're really excited about it,'' said Dr. Deborah Wexler, the coalition's founder and
executive director. "We will keep generating the same energy and output of work and
look forward to the next three years of collaborating with the CDC.'' |
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| The organization traces its roots to the Hepatitis B Coalition and the newsletter Wexler
founded in 1990. The first newsletters were copies of the group's minutes sent
to about 40 health care workers. |
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| The group ran out of money in February 1994 and had to temporarily close until Wexler
rounded up a $100,000 donation from a pharmaceutical company. In June, the
coalition reopened at its present location - the second floor of the Liberty State Bank building at the
intersection of Selby and Snelling avenues. |
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| In September 1994, the coalition changed its name to the Immunization Action Coalition and
broadened the scope of the newsletter. |
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| A year later, the coalition was awarded a $750,000 grant from the CDC. At the time, its
newsletter was being sent to about 100,000 health care professionals. Today, it
goes to 230,000 health care workers. |
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| The coalition also publishes a second newsletter - called Vaccinate Adults! - and sends it to
150,000 adult-medicine specialists. The coalition also hosts one of the most popular
immunization Web sites on the Internet. The site drew more than 18,700 visitors last year,
who then clicked on more than 422,000 items, Wexler said. Another 10,000 people receive
the coalition's free e-mail publication, which contains the latest news on
immunization and hepatitis B treatment. |
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| By staff writer Tom Majeski |
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| Immunization Action Coalition Wins Prestigious Award |
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| Partners in Public Health Award from Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention |
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| Deborah L. Wexler, MD, shown
holding the award, is accompanied by (left to right) Margaret Vaillancourt and
Lynn Bahta of the Coalition, and CDC's Hepatitis Branch staff members, Craig
Shapiro, MD, medical epidemiologist; Linda Moyer, MSN, nurse epidemiologist; and
Harold Margolis, MD, Hepatitis Branch chief. |
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| May 15, 1997 |
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| A once-obscure immunization newsletter that won a $750,000 federal grant in 1995
now has won a prestigious Partners in Public Health award from the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. |
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"I wasn't really that impressed until I
found out who the other organizations are that got the award. We're in
incredible company," said Margaret Vaillancourt, a co-founder of the St.
Paul-based Immunization Action Coalition. |
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| The CDC award - only one of four presented
this year - was made "to recognize this coalition of health care
professionals and concerned citizens whose efforts were instrumental in
achieving high levels of routine infant hepatitis B immunization." |
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| Vaillancourt, Dr. Deborah Wexler, the
immunization group's other co-founder, and Lynn Bahta, a public health nurse
and the organization's health educator, will accept the award June 4 in
Atlanta. |
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| "We'll get a plaque and a handshake" from Dr.
David Satcher, the head of the CDC, Wexler said. |
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| Wexler, who was on the staff at the West Side
Community Clinic, got the idea for the newsletter in 1990 after a measles
outbreak killed three Hmong children in St. Paul. |
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| She has been assisted over the years by
Vaillancourt, a former journalist. Their first newsletters, which were sent
to about 40 people in the Twin Cities area, were simply minutes of meetings
held by the Hepatitis B Coalition. |
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| But the newsletter struck a chord with busy
doctors, nurses and other health care providers, who appreciated the short,
concise articles and the easy-to-follow charts. |
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| Fueled by its usefulness, the newsletter's
circulation gradually climbed to several hundred, then jumped to several
thousand and now is at a remarkable 173,000 copies per issue. |
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| "We just keep growing and growing and
growing," Wexler said. |
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| Besides the newsletter, the coalition has
become a national distributor for immunization videos, and, to handle the
increased workload, in June will double its office space in the Liberty
State Bank, 1573 Selby Ave. |
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| In recognition of the important service the
coalition provides, officials at the CDC increased the group's original
grant of $150,000 a year for five years to $175,000 annually and is likely
to boost it by another $75, 000 a year, Vaillancourt said. |
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| "They're remarkable," said Mike Christenson,
executive director of the Allina Foundation, which is one of the coalition's
many sponsors. |
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| "They produce the busiest and best newsletter
in the country on immunization - there's not much doubt about that,"
Christenson said. "This newsletter has created a tremendous, very
intelligent grass-roots movement unto itself." |
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| By staff writer Tom Majeski |
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| This page was reviewed on July 21, 2008 |
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