Childhood Vaccination - It's A Very Good Thing

I understand parental anxiety.  I'm a parent who worries about everything about my kids.  But there is one thing I have never worried about, and that is giving vaccines to my children.  I'm a big proponent of vaccines and the world of good they've done and continue to do in reducing mortality, morbidity and misery.  Imagine what it would be like to fear your child becoming crippled from polio.  Imagine your child contracting measles and developing encephalitis from the infection.  Imagine your son becoming sterile from a mumps infection.  Today's parents don't have to fear such diseases because of childhood vaccination.  Because these diseases now seem so antiquated and remote to parents of our generation, it has become easy for some moms and dads to be cavalier about vaccines.  Oh, my child isn't going to get polio or measles, they say.  I'll just count on everyone else getting vaccinated, and that will protect my child indirectly.  Selfish argument?  Absolutely. 

Then we have the group of parents who believes their child will become autistic if they get too many vaccines.  The group of researchers from Britain who started all this vaccine and autism talk in the 1990s recently retracted their statements.  Hallelujah, we pediatricians cried, when that announcement was made.  There is no good science to support any link between vaccines and autism.  Some parents also worry that the number of vaccines we give can overwhelm the immune system.  My partner, Dr. Michael Segarra, likes to tell moms that a child's pacifier introduces more antigens into the body than the vaccines we give at one visit!  He's absolutely right. 

I know that there are parents out there who will remain skeptical of vaccines no matter how much information we pediatricians give them, but I also like to tell these parents that if I didn't think vaccines were safe and necessary, I certainly wouldn't have given them to my kids.  I think that says a lot.