http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020121/health/21healthbrf.lede.htm

 

Health & Medicine 1/21/02

 

The safety of taking lots of shots
Paul Offit wanted to reassure parents. So the chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia penned a comforting review of vaccine safety in this month's issue of Pediatrics. It didn't comfort Barbara Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, an advocacy group worried that the growing number of childhood shots–kids get about 20 doses of 11 vaccines by age 2–will overwhelm children's bodies. She is also the mother of kids with problems and illnesses she attributes to vaccines. "This kind of junk science is not going to outweigh ... personal experience," she declares. "We need solid research." Offit says his offering is solid. He notes the number of immune stimulants in the total vaccine package has declined over the past century, from 200 to fewer than 130. So the immune system is actually less challenged. And the pneumococcal vaccine, for example, was tested in 40,000 kids, and immunological responses carefully studied, before it was recommended in 1999. "There are kids who don't respond to a vaccine [and are] at risk for that particular disease," Offit says, but they don't get other diseases. –Josh Fischman

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.