By Michelle Kelly, MD
As printed in Around Town Publishing, April 2008
Vaccinations are one of the greatest medical advances of all time. We live in a country where vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, bacterial meningitis, and polio are rarely, if ever, seen. This is due to a highly successful immunization program in the United States. Research shows that 85-95% of the population must continue to vaccinate in order to protect us from a resurgence of these diseases. We are in danger of such a backslide as more parents doubt the safety of vaccinations and subsequently refuse their administration.
It is important to remember that pediatricians vaccinate because vaccine-preventable diseases can cause seizures, brain damage, blindness and even death. Our generation lives with a false sense of security, unlike our parents who suffered through these afflictions. Before the Hib meningitis vaccine became available, approximately 20,000 people were infected with this disease annually and 600 children died in the USA alone. Survivors were often left with deafness, seizure, and mental retardation. Further examples involve the omission of vaccination for measles and mumps in the Midwest to Western USA that has caused recent outbreaks of both of these illnesses. If measles vaccination ceased, approximately 2.7 million deaths worldwide would be expected. Thus, pediatricians clearly believe that is safer to vaccinate than to not vaccinate.
Physicians are not in denial that vaccines have side effects and we are mandated to report such findings to the Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System for further study. Concerns about thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, causing autism have been proven invalid. Despite this fact, the preservative has been removed from all vaccines except certain versions of the flu vaccine. Another vaccine concern for parents is the multitude of vaccines administered in the first two years of life. This schedule affords the greatest protection for our most vulnerable patients and is actually much safer than thirty years ago. Although children today are receiving protection against far more diseases in the form of vaccines, the amount of foreign material injected into your children has declined by 3-4 fold due to the improved formulation of vaccines.
Pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are dedicated to providing the safest healthcare for your child. Please investigate the following website of the AAP for further information on vaccines: http://www.cispimmunize.org.