“Protecting the health and
informed consent rights of children since 1982.”
Savannah hosts national conference on immunization.
Savannah Morning News
The typical Georgia child gets 19 vaccination shots before
age 2.
That’s almost four times as many as just 15 years ago.
Still, most parents have no problem with vaccines - in Chatham County more than
90 percent of kids receive all those shots on schedule.
But that success creates a problem for health officials -
a whole generation of parents has never seen the effects of many diseases
vaccines prevent, such as polio, whooping cough and German measles.
So when those parents hear stories that link vaccines with
diseases - like a recent “60 Minutes” report that linked autism and the MMR
vaccine - they can get fearful about vaccines.
“Now because diseases are largely gone we need to
seriously consider explaining ourselves to parents,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an
immunologist who addressed about 400 vaccination promoters at the Third
National Conference on Immunization Coalitions at the Savannah International
Trade & Convention Center Friday.
No careful epidemiological study has shown that any
vaccine in current use has ever caused any serious harm, he said.
What’s often held up as evidence against vaccines is
coincidence.
“Just because one event follows another doesn’t mean it
caused it,” Offit said. “During lunar eclipses they used to beat on drums and
they thought that caused it to fade. But when they stopped beating on drums it
still faded.”
The case against the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine,
or MMR, is similar. A British researcher reported on eight children who
received the vaccine and subsequently developed autism.
A controlled study that looked at autism rates in children
who did and did not receive the vaccine showed no difference in the groups,
Offit said, though that study was not mentioned in the TV report.
Parents - especially the educated, middle-class parents
likely to be aware of anti-vaccine information - need to get solid scientific
information from doctors to allay their fears, said Offit, chief of the section
of infectious diseases and director of the vaccine education center at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia.
He’s producing a video that will help doctors explain the
risk of not vaccinating. In one segment a Florida mother explains how her son
died from chicken pox - her doctor was lukewarm in recommending the vaccine so
she didn’t get him immunized.
“She reads from his first-grade report card issued a few
months before he died,” Offit said. “It’s really moving.”
In Georgia, few children go without immunizations once
they reach school, where immunizations are required for admission.
Only .4 percent of children get immunization waivers,
which can be granted for medical or religious reasons, according to the Georgia
Department of Human Resources.
But some parents do balk at their kids being turned into
mini pincushions, said Susan Malone, a public health supervisor at the Chatham
County Health Department.
“They can get up to five (shots) in one visit,” she said.
But the shots won’t overwhelm the child’s immune system or
become less effective that way, she said.
Health reporter Mary Landers can be reached at 652-0337 or
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