- Is new complacency & outright opposition to vaccinations warranted?
- Is there some reason why we should back off from generally accepted medical practice of vaccinating kids?

- Number of children contracting preventable diseases down 99 % since the early 1970s
- 13 vaccine-preventable diseases: diphtheria, haemophilius influenzae type B, hepatitis A & B, measles, mumps, pertussis, pneumococcal pneumonia & meningitis, polio, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus & varicella or chickenpox
- In 2004, 83% of US children aged 19-35 months were up to date on their shots compared to just 76% in 1996
- Individuals & communities helped reach current childhood immunization coverage levels

- Introduce child's immune system to harmless portion of microorganism for each disease
- → Immune system gears up to destroy any real offenders that may be encountered
- Individual immunity is extremely important but community immunity is critical from a public health perspective
- → The higher the numbers of protected citizens, the less likely a disease is to spread & cause an epidemic

- Early 1960s: measles → 48,000 hospitalizations & 3,000 deaths/year among US children
- Licensure of vaccine in 1963: number of cases rapidly reduced by 99%
- Around 99, measles immunization rates dropped → 55,000 new cases reported with 11,000 hospitalizations & 125 deaths
- Complacency & opposition to childhood vaccination: ← misinformation; many believe microorganisms that cause the diseases are gone: extremely dangerous misconception; offending agents are around but unable to spread if most of the population is protected

- > 2 million people/year, mostly children, die from vaccine-preventable diseases
- → We can't allow ourselves to think vaccines aren't worth it because we're afraid of side effects or because we think we're safe from the disease; it's the exact opposite
- Prof. Stanley Plotkin from the University of Pennsylvania: “in developed countries, we no longer have infectious diseases for which are vaccines so the risk of the vaccine is perceived to be greater than the risk of the disease but that is true because the vaccine is being used”

Pediatrician Neil Haren Dean (Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester): “in the1950s polio affected every neighborhood, now natural polio is far removed from most people's daily lives but when a little girl in California develops side effects from polio vaccine that hits the newspapers”
- I was one of the children who contracted polio. Once the vaccine became available, my father volunteered with many other physicians to mass vaccinate all schoolchildren; threat of disease at that time was palpable & benefits of vaccine were clear but today there are a lot of misconceptions about vaccines

- Myth 1: vaccines cause many harmful side effects, illnesses and even death
• the truth: vaccines are remarkably safe and effective each one undergoes about ten years of research before it's approved by the FDA and after it's approved safety monitoring for side effects continue. Most side effects are minor and temporary, such as a sore arm or minor fever
- Myth 2: disease is rare in US → no need to be vaccinated truth: we live in a global society → many opportunities every day for reintroduction of microorganisms → when immunization rates fall → diseases rapidly reappear
- Myth 3: giving multiple vaccinations at the same time like MMR for measles mumps and rubella increases risk of side effects
• truth: studies show no increased risks for combined vaccines (logical since our bodies are used to being simultaneously challenged by multiple germs of differing types), grouping vaccines together increases likelihood of reaching acceptable levels of immunity
- Myth 4: even if you're vaccinated you can get the disease, so it's not worth the trouble
• truth: childhood vaccines 95% effective in providing long-term immunity & best protection for the 5% whose bodies don't respond to vaccination is high immunity levels in the community to make it unlikely they'll be exposed to the disease
- Myth 5: DTP (diphtheria, tetanus & pertussis) → sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
• truth: occur in same time frame of infant's life but studies found no evidence of causal connection
- Myth 6: measles vaccine causes autism
• truth: no evidence of causal association; study of 530,000 Danish children published in New England Journal of Medicine found that rates of autism were no different among vaccinated and unvaccinated children

- Any risks that might be associated with vaccinations are minor when compared to the benefits
- American Academy of Pediatrics Dr Cooper: “not fully immunizing children is one of the most serious and potentially fatal mistakes a parent can make with a child's health”

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