Child vaccines deemed safe

Monday, June 24, 2002

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

More than 2,000 studies on millions of children over half a century ought to be enough to rule out a link between the MMR vaccine (mumps, measles and rubella) and autism and bowel disease.

Devoting more time and money to re-researching imagined connections would only divert precious resources from more worthwhile ventures, such as finding the true cause of autism and developing more ways to treat bowel disease.

It can be hoped that the findings published in the Internet version of the journal Clinical Evidence will help to reverse a troubling trend in Great Britain, where the study originated, and the United States. Child immunization rates are dropping, and not only because there is a national vaccine shortage in this country.

The worrisome decline in vaccination rates is occurring in part because more than a few parents are suspicious that giving infants and toddlers multiple vaccinations may actually bring on, not ward off, some diseases. In this state 12 vaccines, including some given in combination, are recommended for children.

Recently, a national survey showed that almost 25 percent of American parents believe that too many vaccines can overwhelm an infant's immune system. And, as reported by the National Immunization Survey, the percentage of King County 2-year-olds fully immunized with three basic vaccines -- DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), polio and MMR -- has fallen from 86.7 percent in 1998 to 76.5 percent. Similar declines have been recorded in other major urban areas.

As the associate medical director of Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center pointed out in the Feb. 17 Sunday P-I Focus, "Most vaccine-preventable diseases are now rare in our community, but many such as measles, polio and diphtheria are still only a plane ride away.

"Measles is among the most contagious of diseases -- far more contagious than smallpox -- and was introduced in Seattle just last year by travelers," wrote Dr. Edgar K. Marcuse.

Besides the risks to themselves -- there is no effective treatment for measles and it can lead to death -- children who are not immunized increase the chances that others will get the disease, including those who cannot be vaccinated.

The unprecedented research will not convince every last parent who is suspicious that his child's very real condition was the fault of the MMR vaccine. So be it. The researchers are right -- this scientific debate is over.

On the Net:

clinicalevidence.org ; immunizationinfo.org; www.cdc.gov/nip; www.doh.wa.gov/cfh/immunize

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