Vaccines and Immunizations

Monographs and Articles:

These monographs and articles contain comprehensive information on vaccines and immunizations from many different perspectives, such as vaccine research, global health and immunization programs, economic perspectives immunization programs, and the history of vaccine discoveries. Important sources for both a broader and deeper understanding of vaccines and immunizations.

DeSalle, Rob, ed. Epidemic! The World of Infectious Disease. New York: The New Press, 1999. 614.4 Epi, Chapel Hill Public Library

This book was published in cooperation with the American Museum of Natural History. The ways in which immunization programs have tried to control infectious diseases throughout the world is a major theme that runs throughout these essays. There are essays on the development of the chicken pox vaccine, on vaccine trails involving scientists and health care workers, and on current vaccine research and future vaccines. One very interesting section is called a “Case Study: “Chasing the Flu:” It is about the World Health Organization’s global influenza surveillance and the WHO’s strain selection process, which determines the ingredients of each year’s flu vaccine.

Grabowski, Henry G, and John M. Vernon. The Search for New Vaccines: The Effects of the Vaccines for Children Program. Washington, DC: The AEI Press, 1997. 615.372 G728, S434, 1997 Duke University, Perkins Library, 1^st floor.

Grabowski is an Economics Professor and Director of the Pharmaceuticals Program and Health Economics at Duke, and John Vernon is an Economics Professor at Duke. In this book, the authors trace the effects of the US Government’s purchase of vaccines for children in the Vaccines for Children Program. They argue that failure to vaccinate children is related to parental incentives and education, and to poor health care management. They write about the “renaissance of interest” in the past decade for developing vaccines, about FDA licensing problems, and about biological and pharmaceutical approaches to the development of vaccines.

Plotkin, Stanley A., and Walter A. Orenstein. Vaccines. 3^rd ed. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co, 1999. QW805.V1162 1999, UNC Health Science Library, basement floor.

With 1230 pages, this is the most comprehensive source for information on vaccines, and it is an essential text for this topic. It begins with a short history of vaccine research, and goes on to cover a wide range of issues associated with vaccines, like economic and organizational issues, global and research on future vaccines, specific populations, refugees and immigrants. There is a very good critical chapter on immunizations in the developing world. Very much a reference source.

Wenger, Jay. “Vaccines for the Developing World: Current Status and Future Directions.” Vaccine 19 (2001): 1588-1591.

This article is a very good analysis of the preventable disease conditions and vaccine implementation in the developing world. Author considers health care and economic conditions in developing countries and in developed countries that have created obstacles to implementing vaccine programs in the developing countries. He describes recent vaccine programs that have worked in these countries. And he suggests that medical technology could very well help to solve immunization delivery problems in developing countries in the future. Finally, he sees a movement towards an “international immunization system.”