Reflections of a Lifetime Dedicated to Public Health Advocacy - In Memory of Beth Waters
By: Tina Flores
Beth Waters was a communications professional committed to advancing the cause of vaccine development and delivery. Among her many achievements, she helped to create a model for improving access to HIV treatment that has been applied to scale up treatment for other diseases.
A reporter in the early years of her career, Beth was a senior managing director of Ogilvy Public Relations before co-founding Cooney/Waters Group, a health care public relations and public affairs company in New York City. Beth was indefatigable in her work on vaccine advocacy, traveling the world to lend her intensity and expertise to her clients, governmental committees and non-governmental organizations; and promoting immunization against polio, HIV/ AIDS, avian influenza and meningococcal disease. Beth was a wise counselor, a creative problem-solver, and a relentless optimist. Beth passed away in 2006.
She was a founding member of the advisory board of the Vaccine Education Center of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the HIV Vaccine Communications Steering Group of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
