A remarkable paediatrician who pioneered research into vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases in Australia
Margaret Burgess (nee Menser, 1937–) was born in Sydney, and it is Sydney alone that can claim credit for her education and the achievements of a career spanning, unusually, laboratory, clinical and population-based research. Her contributions to medicine are of international importance to our understanding of congenital rubella and its prevention, and to clinical and public health aspects of the control of vaccine-preventable disease more generally. With more than 250 published articles and 20 book chapters, and an Order of Australia for services to public health, Margaret can rightly be considered a pre-eminent paediatric researcher of her generation.
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- 1. Menser MA, Dorman DC, Reye RD, Reid RR. Renal-artery stenosis in the rubella syndrome. Lancet 1966; 287: 790-792.
- 2. Menser MA, Harley JD, Hertzberg R, et al. Persistence of virus in lens for three years after prenatal rubella. Lancet 1967; 290: 387-388.
- 3. Forrest JM, Menser MA, Burgess JA. High frequency of diabetes mellitus in young adults with congenital rubella. Lancet 1971; 298: 332-334.
- 4. Menser MA, Hudson JR, Murphy AM, Cossart YE. Impact of rubella vaccination in Australia. Lancet 1984; 385: 1059-1062.
- 5. Plotkin SA. The history of rubella and rubella vaccination leading to elimination. Clin Infect Dis 2006; 43 Suppl 3: S164-S168.
- 6. Burgess MA, Heath TC, McIntyre PB. The Measles Control Campaign and immunisation adverse events. Commun Dis Intel 1998; 22: 136-138.
- 7. Turnbull FM, Burgess MA, McIntyre PB, et al. The Australian Measles Control Campaign, 1998. Bull World Health Organ 2001; 79: 882-888.
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