The development and deployment of childhood vaccines represents the most important life saving achievement in the last century, but the status of our protection against vaccine-preventable illness is as fragile as ever in the United States. In 2019 we have already seen the most cases of measles since 1992 — over 1200 — this for a disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000. Vaccine hesitancy among families has been fueled by an anti-vaccine movement that has steadily organized during the last two decades, represents an existential threat to the health of children and is the subject of today's podcast.

Our guest is a physician-scientist, pediatrician and advocate we admire greatly — Peter Hotez, MD, PhD. In today's episode we are going to talk about his new book, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician and Autism Dad.

Dr. Hotez is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Director of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children's Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics. He is also University Professor at Baylor University, and Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Thoughts about this episode or suggestions for a future topic? Write to us, [email protected]