Bruce  Weniger

After earning MD and MPH (epidemiology) degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles, and training in pediatrics at the University of Utah, in 1980 Dr Bruce G. Weniger joined the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, followed by a variety of career assignments in disease surveillance, outbreak investigation and control, epidemiology training, and vaccination technology. 

In the mid-1980s, he was detailed for three years to the World Health Organization (WHO) to advise the Field Epidemiology Training Program in the Thailand Ministry of Public Health (MOPH).  In 1990, he returned to Bangkok for a second tour of duty to found and become first director of the joint AIDS field research station of the MOPH and CDC (initially named the “HIV/AIDS Collaboration” (later the “Thailand MOPH – U.S. CDC Collaboration” [TUC]) (oral history), from which he published the first comprehensive review of HIV/AIDS in Thailand (https://bit.ly/HIV-AIDS-Thailand1) and its molecular basis (https://bit.ly/Molec-Epi_HIV-Asia1), and editorialized on the country’s response to the epidemic (https://bit.ly/March-AIDS-Asia1) and its promise for vaccine trials (https://bit.ly/HIV-incidence-Thailand). In 2019, he lectured at The Siam Society on the History of the Early HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Thailand.

Other international assignments included WHO smallpox eradication in Bangladesh (1975, https://bit.ly/BGW-smallpoxA1, oral history), refugee health in Somalia (1981, https://bit.ly/BGW-Somalia1), and guinea worm eradication in West Africa (1982).

From 1995 to 2010, Dr Weniger led vaccination technology development at CDC, with a focus on safer, simpler, swifter vaccination methods that avoid the dangers and drawbacks of needle and syringe, such as disposable-syringe jet injectors and other needle-free delivery methods.  He co-authored Chapter 61, Alternative Vaccine Delivery Methods (https://bit.ly/Vaccines6thChap61a), in the 5th and 6th editions of the Elsevier textbook, Vaccines.

In 2010, he retired from the U.S. Public Health Service/CDC and from 2011 through 2020 was International Professor at the Research Institute for Health Sciences of Chiang Mai University, where he organized and led workshops in scientific-manuscript writing for faculty (https://bit.ly/BGW-CMU1 + https://bit.ly/BGW-CMU2), and consulted on their papers and research.  From 2010 through 2014, he also served as an Associate Editor of the journal Vaccine.  

During his career, Dr Weniger has served as member or chair of various boards, advisory committees, and working groups, including of the Annual Conferences on Vaccine Research (https://bit.ly/ACVR-1to18a), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (now known as GAVI), the International Organization for Standardization, the International Society for Vaccines, the Pan American Health Organization, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (https://bit.ly/BGW-WhiteHouseA1, https://bit.ly/BGW-PACHA-intro), and the World Health Organization (https://bit.ly/BGW-WHO1).