Julie Bettinger

Dr. Julie Bettinger is a vaccine specialist based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

She studied infectious disease epidemiology with a PhD from John Hopkins University and a Master of Public Health specializing in international health, also from John Hopkins.

Bettinger holds operating grants from the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). She has received vaccine-focused research funding from the British Columbia Immunization Committee (BCIC), a subcommittee of the British Columbia Communicable Disease Policy Committee (CD Policy).

Bettinger is a scientist at the Vaccine Evaluation Centre at the BC Children’s Hospital Child & Family Research Institute.

Bettinger is the lead investigator for the Canadian Vaccine Safety Network (CANVAS), an initiative of the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) that submits vaccine safety reports to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). CIRN is funded by GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Sanofi.

She is also a co-investigator in the CANVAS-COVID study, evaluating the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Bettinger is the epidemiologist for the Canada’s Immunization Monitoring Program ACTive (IMPACT), a national surveillance system for vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine adverse events in 12 pediatric tertiary care centers across Canada. This position provides Bettinger research grants. She has worked with IMPACT continuously since 2004.

IMPACT is administered by the Canadian Paediatric Society with funding from the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Additional surveillance for rotavirus and invasive meningococcal disease is funded separately. Bettinger’s NACI declaration reveals these separate funders to be GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer.

Bettinger is funded as a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar. She has received two awards:

• A program of research to optimize public health immunization programs, issued in 2011
• “VACCINE BOOSTER TALK” short film for frontline healthcare professionals, issued in 2019

​​On January 24, 2020, Bettinger delivered a presentation for the Provincial Health Services Authority titled “Vaccine Hesitancy: It doesn't matter if the vaccine works if nobody gets it.” She claimed to have no affiliation, financial or otherwise, with pharmaceutical, medical device or communications organization, despite multiple sources of funding from pharmaceutical companies, and listing Pfizer as the sponsor of the presentation in her NACI disclosure.

Bettinger is a member of the STRIVEBC consortium, which is “a consortium of public health leaders, scientists, and clinicians, formed to critically assess the current environment and gaps, develop policy and action plans, and encourage global conversation about STI vaccines against pathogens like syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).”

The group works on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) to help achieve their goals laid out in their publication, Global health sector strategy on Sexually Transmitted Infections 2016-2021. The report is centered around the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The consortium is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and is partnered with the National Institutes of Health-funded Global Control of HPV Related Diseases and Cancer, hosted at the BC Women’s Health Research Institute.,

Bettinger is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious and Immunological Diseases at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Bettinger’s research interests include vaccine safety, vaccine hesitancy and vaccine preventable diseases, COVID-19 vaccines, as well as attitudes and beliefs around immunization uptake and use. Below is a selection of her recent publications: Priorities for sexually transmitted infection vaccine research and development: Results from a survey of global leaders and representatives Published August 2021 Funded by UBC and CIHR Intentions of public school teachers in British Columbia, Canada to receive a COVID-19 vaccine Published July 2021 Funded by the BC Immunization Committee A Web Application About Herd Immunity Using Personalized Avatars: Development Study Published October 2020 Funded by the CIHR Immunogenicity of 2 and 3 Doses of the Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine up to 120 Months Postvaccination: Follow-up of a Randomized Clinical Trial Published August 2020 Funded by the BC Ministry of Health, CIRN, Merck (in-kind), Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, and the Québec Ministry of Health and Social Services Vaccination discourses among chiropractors, naturopaths and homeopaths: A qualitative content analysis of academic literature and Canadian organizational webpages Published August 2020 Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) The everchanging epidemiology of meningococcal disease worldwide and the potential for prevention through vaccination

Bettinger holds operating grants from Pfizer.¹⁾