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Since the start of widespread vaccinations in the United States, the numbers of cases of some formerly common childhood illnesses like measles and pertussis (whooping cough) have dropped by 95% or more. Immunizations have protected millions of children from potentially deadly diseases and saved thousands of lives. In fact, certain diseases crop up so rarely now that parents sometimes ask if vaccines are even necessary anymore.
This mistaken impression is just one common misconception about immunizations. The truth is, most vaccine-preventable diseases still exist in the world, even in the United States, although they occur rarely. The reality is that vaccinations still play a crucial role in keeping children healthy. Read more about immunizations and find out exactly what they do - and what they don't.
What Immunizations Do
Vaccines work by preparing your child's body to fight illness. Each immunization (given through a shot your child receives) contains either a dead or a weakened germ, or parts of it, that causes a particular disease. Your child's body "practices" fighting the disease by making antibodies that recognize specific parts of that germ. This permanent or long-standing response means that if your child is ever exposed to the actual disease, the antibodies are already in place and his body knows how to combat it, so he doesn't get sick. This is called immunity.
Facts and Myths
Unfortunately, misinformation about vaccines could make some parents decide not to immunize their child, putting him and others at a greater risk for illness. To better understand the benefits and risks of vaccines, let's debunk a few common myths and state the facts.
The immunization will give my child the very disease the vaccine is supposed to prevent.
This is by far parents' greatest fear about vaccines. However, it is impossible to get the disease from any vaccine made with dead (killed) bacteria or viruses, or just part of the bacteria or virus. Only those immunizations made from weakened (attenuated) live viruses - like the chicken pox (varicella) or measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine - could possibly make a child develop a mild form of the disease, but it is almost always much less severe than the illness that occurs when a person is infected with the disease-causing virus itself. The risk of disease from vaccination is extremely small.
One live virus vaccine that is no longer used in the United States is the oral polio vaccine (OPV). The success of the polio vaccination program has made it possible to replace the live virus vaccine with a killed virus form known as the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV). This change has completely eliminated the possibility of polio disease being caused by the immunization in the United States.
If all the other children in school are immunized, there's no harm in not immunizing my child.
It is true that a single child's chance of catching a disease is low if everyone else is immunized. Yet if one person thinks about skipping vaccines, chances are other people are thinking the same thing. And each child who is not immunized gives these highly contagious diseases one more chance to spread. This actually happened between 1989 and 1991 when an epidemic of measles broke out in the United States. Lapsing rates of immunization among preschoolers led to a sharp jump in the number of cases of measles, as well as the number of deaths and children with permanent brain damage. Similar outbreaks of pertussis (whooping cough) struck Japan and the United Kingdom in the 1970s after immunization rates declined.
Although vaccination rates are fairly high in the United States, there is no reliable way of knowing if everyone your child comes into contact with has been vaccinated, particularly now that so many people travel to and from other countries. (As the 1999 outbreak of encephalitis from West Nile virus in New York illustrated, a disease can hop halfway around the world very quickly because of international travel.) The best way to protect your child is to immunize him.
The vaccine isn't 100% effective, so I don't want to subject my child to a painful shot for nothing.
Few things in medicine work 100% of the time, but vaccines are one of the most effective weapons we have against disease (they work in 85% to 99% of cases). They greatly reduce your child's risk of serious illness (particularly when more and more people use them) and give diseases fewer chances to take hold in a population. It can be difficult to watch your child get a shot, but the fleeting pain is nothing compared to suffering through a potentially deadly bout of diphtheria, pertussis, or measles.
Immunizations will give my child a bad reaction.
The most common reactions to vaccines are minor, including redness and swelling where the shot was given, fever, and rash. Although in rare cases immunizations can trigger seizures or severe allergic reactions, the risk of these is much lower than that of catching the disease if a child is not immunized. Every year millions of children are safely vaccinated, and almost all of them experience no significant side effects.
Meanwhile, research continually improves the safety of immunizations. The American Academy of Pediatrics now advises doctors to use a diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine that includes only specific parts of the pertussis cell instead of the entire killed cell. The acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) has been associated with even fewer side effects like high temperatures and seizures.
Another recent goal that is being met is the removal of the preservative thimerosol from all vaccinations, as recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the United States Public Health Service (USPHS).
Thimerosol is a byproduct of ethyl mercury and has been used as a preservative in vaccines since the 1930s. The amount of thimerosol contained in vaccines is extremely low, at a level not associated with mercury toxicity. But the USPHS now recommends minimizing a child's overall exposure to any sources of mercury, no matter how small they might be, including glass mercury thermometers.
In 1999, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) postponed the use of a new rotavirus vaccine in the United States after some children developed bowel obstructions, possibly triggered by the vaccine. Even though just a few cases were reported, the CDC halted administration of the vaccination because of safety concerns. After further study, that rotavirus vaccine was discontinued.
There are unsubstantiated rumors, many of which circulate on the Internet, linking some vaccines to multiple sclerosis, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), autism, and other problems. To date, several studies have failed to show any connection between immunizations and these conditions. The number of SIDS cases has actually fallen by almost 50% in recent years, whereas the number of vaccines administered yearly continues to rise.
My child does not need to be immunized because the disease has been eliminated.
Diseases that are rare or nonexistent in the United States, like polio and measles, still flourish in other parts of the world. Doctors continue to vaccinate against them because it is easy to come into contact with illnesses through travel. That includes anyone who may who may not be properly immunized coming into the United States, as well as Americans traveling overseas.
If immunization rates fell, a disease introduced by someone visiting from another country could cause serious damage in an unprotected population. In 1994 polio was brought to Canada from India, but it didn't spread because so many people had been immunized. Only when a disease has been eradicated worldwide, as in the case of smallpox, is it safe to cease vaccinations for that particular disease.
My child does not need to be immunized if he's healthy, active, and eating well.
Vaccinations are intended to help keep healthy children healthy. Because vaccines work by protecting the body before disease strikes, if you wait until your child gets sick it will be too late for the vaccine to work. The best time to immunize your child is when he is healthy.
Immunity only lasts for a little while.
A few vaccines, like the one for measles or the series for hepatitis B, may make you immune for your entire life. Others, like tetanus, last for many years but require periodic shots (boosters) for continued protection against the disease. And some, like pertussis, wear off but do not require boosters because the disease is not considered dangerous among adolescents and adults. It is important to keep a record of your child's shots so you will know when he is due for a booster.
The fact that vaccines are continuously studied and improved implies that they are unsafe.
The Food and Drug Administration's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research is the government agency responsible for regulating vaccines in the United States. Working in conjunction with the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), they continuously research and monitor vaccine safety and effectiveness.
New vaccines are licensed only after thorough laboratory studies and clinical trials are conducted, and safety monitoring continues even after a vaccine has been approved. There have been and will continue to be improvements (such as those that have already been made to the DTaP and polio vaccine, for example) that will minimize potential side effects and ensure the best possible safety standards.
More Information
Clearly, vaccines are one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy, but the effectiveness of immunization programs depends on availability. You can receive inexpensive or free vaccines through many local public health clinics and community health centers, and campaigns to vaccinate children often hold free vaccination days.
The CDC's National Vaccine Program Office maintains a Web site dedicated to helping consumers evaluate information about vaccinations from sources in the media and on the Internet.
Another good source of information about immunizations, including which ones your child needs, is your child's doctor (or your local health department if you have had problems finding a doctor for your child). Working together, you can help keep your child healthy and happy.
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