Every Child By Two is a non-profit health advocacy

Health Advocacy

Health advocacy encompasses direct service to the individual or family as well as activities that promote health and access to health care in communities and the larger public. Advocates support and promote the rights of the patient in the health care arena, help build capacity to improve...

 organization, based in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and founded in 1991, dedicated to protecting children from diseases through the promotion of vaccination

Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

s and raising parental awareness of potential vaccine

Vaccine

A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...

 benefits. The stated goals of ECBT are to "raise awareness of the critical need for timely immunizations and to foster a systematic way to immunize all of America's children by age two." ECBT was founded by former First Lady of the United States, Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter

Eleanor Rosalynn Carter is the wife of the former President of the United States Jimmy Carter and in that capacity served as the First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981. As First Lady and after, she has been a leading advocate for numerous causes, perhaps most prominently for mental...

 and former First Lady of Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

, Betty Bumpers.

EBCT's pro-vaccination awareness raising campaigns have expanded in recent years in response to growing controversies in autism

Controversies in autism

Controversies in autism encompass the disagreement over the exact nature of autism, its causes and manifestations. Autism is considered to be a neurodevelopmental condition which manifests itself in markedly abnormal social interaction, communication ability, and patterns of interests.The cause of...

 and vaccine controversies

Vaccine controversy

A vaccine controversy is a dispute over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, or safety of vaccinations. Medical and scientific evidence surrounding vaccinations generally demonstrate that the benefits of preventing suffering and death from infectious diseases outweigh rare adverse effects of...

. ECBT's Vaccinate Your Baby campaign was launched to raise the awareness of issues regarding vaccine schedule compliance and to provide information on the safety of vaccines based on peer reviewed science. ECBT debuted its VaccinateYourBaby.org website in August, 2008, featuring "news and information for parents who wish to learn the truth about immunization

Immunization

Immunization, or immunisation, is the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against an agent ....

 and how best to protect their children from vaccine-preventable diseases."

Awards

In 2008, Betty Bumpers and Rosalynn Carter were awarded the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Champion of Prevention Award at the 34th National Immunization Conference in Washington, DC. In addition, both women have had a number of other awards given to them over the course of their 20 plus years of work in the immunization field, many of which are listed on the Every Child By Two website.

External links

• ECBT.org - Every Child By Two homepage
  • VaccinateYourBaby.org - ECBT vaccine awareness campaign website