You Asked, We Intend to Answer
Nov 19, 2012

When I started contributing to this blog I envisioned a community where individuals, parents, medical professionals and public health advocates could all gather to share  immunization information and discuss current events that pertain to vaccine preventable diseases.  While vaccines are a vital contributor to our public health, I was uncertain whether there would be enough interest to support an ongoing conversation about this one particular topic. However, as our blog readership continues to grow and our social media outreach extends to more than 68,000 people on our Vaccinate Your Family Facebook page, it’s obvious that there is a great deal of interest in immunizations and plenty of people who are eager to engage in conversation.

As our audience has grown, so has our interaction with real parents who struggle with specific questions and concerns pertaining to vaccinations.  These parents are often unsure how they should interpret what they’ve heard on the playground, in the local news, or even on various internet forums.   In our attempt to continue to provide reputable resources for everyone looking to educate themselves regarding vaccines, we’ve decided to introduce a new feature on Shot of Prevention, in which we will call upon several key medical and scientific advisors to address questions that we receive directly from our readers.
Tomorrow will begin the first of many future contributions as we begin with a guest post from Dr. Lara Zibners.  I anticipate that her frank, tell-it-like-it-is style, will be a wonderful contribution to this blog.  Despite receiving a D in Library Sciences at the age of ten, Dr. Zibners’ success is the result of her continued perseverance in her academic studies.  She not only went on to graduate cum laude from the Ohio State University School of Medicine, she also completed both a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.  Today she is board certified in both general pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine.  As the author of the award-winning book “If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay,” and a hilarious blog, Dr. Zibners has been an avid and very public supporter of vaccination.

Since not everyone agrees with her views, she is used to the name calling that often accompanies her pro-vaccine position, which is what assures me that she will fit in perfectly here at Shot of Prevention.  There are few people who actually take pride in being called “bulllstupidest stupid” by the anti-vaccine camp, so I’m pretty sure she’ll stick around a bit.  Besides denying claims that she is “completely diluted,” Dr. Zibners clings tightly to medical science and continues to champion on as a true believer in vaccines for children of all ages.  When not speaking, writing or doctoring, she does her best to mother two toddlers and a middle-aged husband, all of whom are fully vaccinated.

We hope you will welcome Dr. Zibners’ expertise, insight and wonderful sense of humor and we encourage everyone to participate by sending in your questions for consideration.  You can send an email to info@vaccinateyourfamily.org or send us a message on our Vaccinate Your Family Facebook page.   Of course, we may not be able to address each and every question, but we will certainly do our best to address as many as possible as we continue this feature throughout the coming months.

As always, we are eager to engage parents who are looking for science-based information to help them make informed immunization decisions.  Therefore, we invite you to join in this forum by sending in your questions, and we hope you will consider commenting on our posts when you can.

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