Dr. Joyce Drayton earned both her B.S. degree in Zoology and her M.D. from Howard University in Washington, D.C., through the BS/MD dual degree program. She completed her training in Infectious Disease at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, is board certified in Infectious Disease, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. After completing her fellowship training, Dr. Drayton joined the faculty of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, where she served as a member of the Integrative Medicine committee for almost a decade. Dr. Drayton opened her private practice in 2003 and is an active member of a number of societies and community service organizations.
“The initial controversy surrounding the MMR and autism was brewing just as I was completing my Infectious Diseases fellowship, but it wasn’t on my radar until my parents brought it to my attention. My brother was diagnosed with autism back in 1973 and they wanted to know if the vaccine could have caused it. For years, in spite of repeated reassurances from medical agencies and academicians, my answer was always, “Perhaps”. Over the past three years, I’ve purposefully researched vaccination beyond consensus papers and health agency recommendations, and have learned far more about vaccines, their components, risks, and benefits than I learned in medical school and over the course of my career. This has reinforced my conviction that ethics in medicine requires fully informed consent in conjunction with the choice to accept or reject an intervention without a sanction.”
– Dr. Drayton