Rubella is a contagious viral infection best known by its distinctive red rash.

From 1964–1965 there was a rubella epidemic in the United States and subsequently there were 11,000 stillbirths, miscarriages, and abortions, and at least 20,000 congenitally infected infants called “rubella babies.”

Dr. Paul D. Parkman isolated the rubella virus using samples from U.S. military personnel while he worked at Walter Reed. Dr. Harry M. Meyer, Jr., and Dr. Paul D. Parkman experimented with killed virus vaccine and live attenuated virus vaccines, with monkeys first. The Parkman-Meyer research team tamed the rubella virus by subjecting it over a two-year period to 77 passages in primary African green monkey kidney cell cultures.  Drs. Meyer and Parkman developed the first licensed rubella virus vaccine while working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Division of Biologics Standards (DBS). 

Drs. Parkman, Meyer, and George L. Stewart, and Hope Hopps, Barbara Meyer, Robert D. Douglas, and Judith P. Hamilton were part of the team who developed a better blood test (rubella hemagglutination-inhibition immunity test) to screen people for rubella antibodies in 1967. By 1970, it was available for use in laboratories and hospitals throughout the United States. The rubella hemagglutination-inhibition immunity test was patented in 1971. The test employs the biological principle of hemagglutination, or red blood cell clumping. Special preparations of rubella virus cause the red blood cells of newly hatched chicks to clump. When a sample of blood from a person who is immune to rubella is added, the antibodies inhibit clumping. Thus, the inhibition of agglutination demonstrates the presence of antibody and immunity. The rubella hemagglutination-inhibition immunity test was used to ascertain whether expectant mothers who have been exposed to rubella have cause for concern or are immune and at no risk. It was also used in testing for rubella susceptibility in women of child-bearing age.