Immunization Coalition Gets Shot in Arm
May 5, 2000
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
In September 1994, the coalition changed its name to the Immunization Action Coalition and broadened the scope of the newsletter.
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.
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.
By staff writer Tom Majeski