There is much conflicting information about the pros and cons of immunization. On the Internet, a parent can find impassioned pleas to immunize, complete with horror stories about children who have died from a vaccine-preventable disease. That same parent, with a click of a mouse, can find impassioned arguments why NOT to immunize, complete with horror stories about children who have been damaged by vaccines.
A parent who is reluctant to immunize may not trust a health care provider's opinion about vaccination, fearing the provider may have ulterior motives, is uninformed, or has been “brainwashed” by mainstream thinking.
If there is one thing I have learned in my work supervising the Immunization Clinic at the Missoula City-County Health Department, it's that parents who immunize and parents who do not immunize are both acting out of deep concern for the well-being of their children.
It's a good thing for parents to question what is being injected into their child's body - it shows they care about their child. It's a very good thing to research the risks and benefits of vaccines - but how do we know the information we're reading is reliable?
If a parent is already reluctant to vaccinate, they are not likely to believe blanket statements or studies they suspect are funded by vaccine companies. Study after study by the Centers for Disease Control or the National Institutes of Health will not sway someone who has been convinced otherwise by one study to the contrary.
An important case in point is the 1998 study that was done concerning the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccine by Dr. Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital in London and published in the journal Lancet.
Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues studied 12 (total) children with autism, concluding the children had higher than normal levels of measles virus in their stomach. (In the early 1990s autism was being associated with measles disease, not measles vaccination).
Even though the authors of the study stated, “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described,” eight of the 12 parents concluded that MMR vaccination was responsible for their child's autism. This conclusion was not refuted by Wakefield, and the stage was set for near hysterical fear of MMR vaccine. This, of course, led to a subsequent rise in measles and mumps disease in the U.K.
Wakefield later confessed to a conflict of interest, admitting he received $90,000 from England's Legal Aid Board, which was representing parents of children with autism. Then, in 2004, 10 of the study's 13 authors signed a formal retraction, admitting they found no link between the vaccine and autism, “as the data were insufficient.”
Still, skeptical parents may believe the authors were pressured into making a retraction. They may also not believe the many, many independent studies that have found no link between autism and vaccinations.
In the United States, fear of the measles component of MMR vaccine morphed into fear of the preservative Thimerosal, or ethyl-mercury. Thimerosal has subsequently been removed from all childhood vaccines, without a corresponding reduction in autism.
I have often told parents that their child may get more methyl-mercury - a more dangerous and long-lasting kind of mercury than ethyl-mercury - from a tuna fish sandwich than from all their childhood shots combined. However, the CDC agreed that the cumulative effects of any kind of mercury should be considered, and removed from any source possible, including vaccines.
I also remind reluctant parents that our immune systems peak at age 12, so the earlier the vaccinations are done, the better the immune response. Our bodies are exposed to hundreds of antigens every day that result in an immune response, so can certainly handle the 123 antigens that are contained in all childhood vaccines combined.
Thanks to public demand, vaccines are safer and more efficient than in years gone by. And they certainly have been effective: After the introduction of polio and measles vaccines in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, cases of measles disease dropped from 319,124 and 468 deaths in 1950, to 86 cases and no deaths in 1999. Cases of polio dropped from 33,300 and 1904 deaths in 1950, to zero cases in 1999.
If we didn't have vaccinations, our society would spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying to contain the spread of infectious diseases, as in the centuries before us. A society can't move forward with things such as self-actualization, spirituality or community service if we're constantly struggling with infectious diseases. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
To find out more about immunizations and other health information, check out the Centers for Disease Control web site at www.cdc.gov or http://www.immunize.org or http://www.vaccineinformation.org
Each month the Missoulian Health Page features a column by the Healthy Start Council, a coalition of groups and individuals working collaboratively to improve the lives of young children in Missoula County. The Missoula City-County Health Department is a member of the Healthy Start Council that advocates for the well-being of children. Vicki Dundas, RN, is a nursing supervisor at the Health Department and oversees the Out-Patient Communicable Disease and Immunization Clinic. She can be reached at 258-4987 or at 301 W. Alder, Missoula, MT 59802.
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