In The News - About Vaccinations

Should you get your children vaccinated?? I believe you should, and I will be, but that's my opinion and I don't make decisions for everyone, thank goodness. I can just hope that if you decide to NOT vaccinate your children (for whatever reason) that it's a truly informed decision (not because of unproven links to autism due to preservatives that haven't been used in children's vaccinations since 2001, etc.) and it all works out for the best for everyone.

I came across an article on MSNBC, Kids truly are little germ factories, study proves. Like we didn't know that already, right? I mean Willow will eat shoes if I let her. And every little speck that is on the floor finds its way into her mouth. But apparently they needed to complete a study to prove it, so let's take a look at the findings. According to the article, flu-shot season begins this month, and for the first time vaccination is being pushed for virtually all children — not just those under 5.

You know what? I seriously forgot that we are practically in the middle of September. Where in the heck has the year gone off too?

According to the article; Any parent can attest that youngsters are germ factories. It takes years of nagging before they cover coughs and sneezes. Little ones tend to pick their noses. Even teenagers aren't great hand-washers. Crowded schools, preschools and day-care centers act as incubators.

Previously, flu vaccine was recommended for youngsters under 5, who can become dangerously ill from influenza. This year, the government is recommending that children from age 6 months to 18 years be vaccinated — expanding inoculations to 30 million more school-age children. While they seldom get as sick as the younger tots, it's a bigger population that catches flu at higher rates, so the change should at least cut missed school and parents' missed work.

And it could have the added benefit of protecting entire communities if less influenza virus gets passed around.

“We're all very enthusiastic and anticipate seeing an indirect benefit, but that's something we need to study and carefully watch,” says Dr. Jeanne Santoli, Deputy Director of the Immunization Services Division of the National Immunization Program with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But what if you are one of the increasing number of parents who choose to NOT have your child vaccinated? I mean, I know the "flu shot" is a vaccine but not in the traditional "one time" sense like may other vaccinations. According to the article "Strife over shots: Should our kids play together?"; While the vast majority of American parents vaccinate their children, more appear to be opting against immunization. One study found that the percentage of parents who took personal belief exemptions to state laws requiring school-age kids to be vaccinated increased from just under 1 percent in 2001 to about 2.5 percent in 2004.

You can see State by State Vaccination Exemptions by clicking here.

Did you know that vaccinations are not a guarantee that your child will be immune to a disease? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), vaccinations are only 90%-99% effective. So, if your child comes into contact with an unvaccinated child who has the measles or mumps (as an example), they could still become very ill.

And parents who declined to have their children vaccinated worry that already vaccinated children could infect their child. While there is a very slim possibility, Dr Ari Brown, author of Baby 411, says any such risk would be with “live attenuated” vaccines, which are made from weakened forms of the germs that cause infection. “I have not seen any cases reported of vaccine-associated exposure causing disease in MMR or rotavirus,” she says. “There have been three documented cases of vaccine-associated exposure with chicken pox — three cases in 30 million doses given.”

But parents still worry about the link between vaccinations and Autisim despite evidence against such a link. According to the article Vaccine-wary parents spark public health worry, skeptical of government mandates and leery of feared links to disorders from asthma to autism, parents say they’re exercising their rights to protect their kids from risk. But health officials say there’s no question that the risk of vaccination is far outweighed by the benefits of inoculation, and that those who don’t immunize endanger not only their own kids, but also the collective resistance that keeps everyone else safe, too.

“When more than 10 percent of a community opts out of vaccinations, it leaves the entire community at risk because germs have a greater chance of causing an epidemic,” said Dr. Brown, who also represents the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Increased exemptions raise the chances that serious diseases reduced or nearly eradicated in this country could make a comeback, particularly among those too young, too old or too medically compromised to be vaccinated, said Dr. Saad B. Omer, an assistant professor with Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, who has studied vaccination rates extensively.

“They depend on the immunity of their surroundings.”

That’s just as true for those who choose not to vaccinate. Two years ago, the New England Journal of Medicine recounted the case of a 17-year-old Indiana girl who returned from a trip to Romania and sparked a measles outbreak. Of 500 people attending a gathering the day after she got home, 50 were susceptible to the disease. Of those, 34 came down with measles in the next six weeks, mostly children who had not been vaccinated. Three of the youngsters were hospitalized and the cost to contain the outbreak was estimated at nearly $168,000.

Only a vaccination rate of about 95 percent in the surrounding community prevented an epidemic, researchers said.

According to one parent, “If you read the list of ingredients about what you’re putting intramuscularly into your child, it’s scary, they’re not just giving you a little dose of dead bacteria.”

Scientists could not disagree more strongly. Longstanding immunizations are not only safe, they've contributed to as much as a 90 percent drop in infections and death from vaccine-preventable disease, they say.

The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a voluntary program that records bad reactions to immunizations, receives about 30,000 reports a year, with between 10 percent and 15 percent classified as serious, according to the CDC. The CDC estimates severe problems occur in less than 1 in a million doses.

But parents often reject vaccinations not because of these known risks, but because of unproven links to disorders such as asthma, attention deficit disorder, or autism.

“One of the biggest issues is that parents think they’re safe to make this decision,” said Peg Crowley, the director of the Community Health Center, who recalls quarantines from her own childhood. “There’s no memory of the consequences of these diseases. We take our protection sometimes for granted.”

I would personally urge you to get your child vaccinated and not rely on the rest of the population to keep disease at bay. But, again, that's just my opinion. I mean, why not make use of modern medicine that has been proven over and over again?