Dr. Stanley Plotkin

“Rubella followed me to the United States… it was, to say the least, an experience in misery and concern”

Plotkin on treating rubella, Virology Unmasked, 2026

Throughout Dr. Plotkin’s 60+ year career, the rubella vaccine remains one of his most impactful contributions to science. This vaccine, part of the MMR vaccine recommended to all American children, has saved many lives. Rubella causes more birth defects than any other vaccine preventable disease. From 1964-1965, in the last major rubella outbreak in the US, 2000 infants died, 11,000 women miscarried, and over 20,000 babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). The babies born with CRS suffered from deafness, cataracts, heart problems and intellectual disabilities. One in every three babies with CRS died before their first birthday. In 1969, Dr. Plotkin’s rubella vaccine reached the public and revolutionized pediatric health across the world. Today, rubella infects 30-60 US babies a year and causes less than 5 cases of CRS. But this tremendous accomplishment by Dr. Plotkin and others is not guaranteed to last. If vaccination rates fall, rubella will return.

6 Vaccines Created: “It was a lesson in attenuation of viruses”

• Rubella vaccine, RA27/3 strain: now manufactured and used in the United States and throughout the world.
• Cytomegalovirus vaccine, Towne strain
• Type 3 polio vaccine, WM-3 further attenuated strain
• Varicella vaccine, Webster strain
• Rabies vaccine, human diploid cell (assisted H. Koprowski and T. Wiktor)
• Rotavirus vaccine, WC3 bovine-human pentavalent reassortants (with HF Clark and P Offit)

Over 900 Papers Published

• Most cited paper: Correlates of Protection Induced by Vaccination, 2010,
  • doi: 10.1128/CVI.00131-10, cited by 2160
• First 1st author paper: The A-B-O blood groups in relation to prematurity and still birth
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-3476(58)80008-6
• Most recent paper: A Vaccine to Prevent Congenital Cytomegalovirus Where Do We Go Next?
  • doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.6432

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“What’s going to happen, unless things change (funding in the US), is that science will move…to China and India…and the US will become second rate”