Vacillating on Vaccines

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 27, 2001 | by Karen Goldberg Goff

Four out of five American children are fully vaccinated by the time they enter school, but some parents view immunization as an iii-advised measure. Are they putting their kids at risk?

The rumors about vaccines scared Suzanne Walther almost as much as any potentially lethal germs. The Murfreesboro, Tenn., mother of three had read a lot about vaccinations as she had prepared for the birth of her daughter, Mary Catherine, two years ago. She surfed the Internet, listened to friends, flipped through magazines.

"I was just amazed at the overwhelming amount of information out there," says Walther, whose two older children had been fully vaccinated. "I said, `Until I know more, I cannot go ahead and do this to my baby.'"

Walther had heard about children getting sick from vaccines, about their immune systems being overwhelmed by a barrage of shots, about children developing autism, diabetes or allergies, possibly as a result of vaccines for illnesses her child probably would never get. So she and her husband postponed their baby's vaccinations until she was 1 year old as they continued their research.

But one week before her first birthday, Mary Catherine contracted meningitis, a potentially lethal illness that could have been prevented with the Haemophilius influenza B (Hib) vaccine. Mary Catherine spent 10 days in the hospital -- the first case of Hib the hospital had seen in eight years. The toddler eventually recovered without complications. She since has been fully vaccinated.

In an era when modern medicine has virtually wiped out illnesses such as polio, measles and rubella, some people have lost sight of the reason for vaccines to prevent them, says Paul Offit, chief of infectious disease and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Vaccines were an easy sell for my generation," Offit says. "Our parents grew up with measles, polio. When I was a resident 20 years ago, doctors saw 20,000 Hib cases a year. Since there has been a vaccine for it [since the late 1980s], there are maybe 100 cases a year. For young mothers today, they have not seen those diseases. That, combined with a greater level of distrust and sensational stories, has made some people wary of immunizations."

According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 80 percent of American preschoolers have been immunized, the highest level in history and a dramatic jump from 55 percent in 1992. But one-quarter of respondents to a survey conducted by Bruce Gellin, associate professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University and executive director of the National Network for Immunization Information, also believe that their child's immune system could be weakened by too many immunizations and that children are given more vaccines than are good for them.

Such concerns can erode public confidence, which may lead to more people declining the full course of vaccines, now 23 doses to combat 11 illnesses. That is a dangerous road to go down, says Gellin. "With the exception of smallpox, which was eradicated more than 20 years ago, many of these diseases are only a plane ride away."

Even though vaccines go through a strict approval process for the Food and Drug Administration and public-health officials deem them among the most important health innovations of this century, there are some risks. The federal government has a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in place, to which some 12,000 reactions are reported voluntarily each year. The majority of those reactions are mild, such as fever or rash at the immunization site. About 20 percent are deemed serious, such as seizures.

Offit points out that vaccine formulas have been changed to enhance safety. The polio vaccine, for instance, used to be four doses of a live virus. That since has been phased out in favor of the killed virus, which is injectable. Experts at the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Academy of Sciences so far have found no links between vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and autism.

Gellin says it is important for parents to understand scientific research and get their information on vaccines from reliable sources such as accredited medical institutions, their physician or the CDC. "People really need to talk to their doctors," he says. "Just because they have questions about vaccines, it does not mean they are antivaccine. If they are not getting reliable information from their doctors, then who are they going to get it from?"