Tallahassee pediatrician D. Paul Robinson was a medical resident while researchers were working in the 1980s to finalize a vaccine against a bacterial scourge that infected and maimed 1 in every 200 young children in the United States, most of them no older than 2. In his pediatric training, he was required to help diagnose the scourge – called Haemophilus influenzae Type b, or Hib — by performing spinal taps on severely ill babies and young children, one after another.
“We had to do painful procedures on these kids to keep them alive,” Dr. Robinson told the Florida Trident, adding he would not want to relive the experience. Hib-positive children were automatically hospitalized, often in intensive care, and treated with antibiotics.
Before Hib vaccination, about 20,000 children younger than five developed severe Hib disease each year in the United States, and about 1,000 died, according to History of Vaccines, run by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Mutter Museum Historical Medical Library…