Walter A. Orenstein, MD is Professor of Medicine, Global Health, and Pediatrics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a co-author of Vaccines, 6th Edition, widely regarded as the gold standard in the field.

Dr. Orenstein received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed an internship and a residency in pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Southern California Medical School and a residency in preventive medicine at the CDC. Dr. Orenstein has served in leadership roles within the CDC’s immunization program since 1982, and served as Director of the National Immunization Program for 11 years. He has been a consultant to the World Health Organization and to the Pan American Health Organization for programs in polio eradication, measles control, and smallpox eradication in India, Brazil, Argentina, and Peru.

Dr. Orenstein has served as an Assistant Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, and he currently serves as chairman of the World Health Organization’s Technical Consultative Group on the Global Eradication of Poliomyelitis. He was a member and rapporteur of the Pan American Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Group on Vaccines and Immunization and served as the CDC liaison member to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee for more than 14 years, having played a major role in development of critical immunization policy documents. During the same period as Dr. Orenstein served on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, he also served as CDC liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases (COID), the major immunization policy making body for private pediatricians.

Dr. Orenstein has authored and co-authored numerous books, journals, and reviews. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and in 2006, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine.

Related Authors: Stanley A. Plotkin, MD; Paul A. Offit, MD