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| health > story page |         |
Doctors say vaccine fears are unfounded
Parents assured benefits for infants outweigh risksOctober 22, 1999 In fact, doctors are growing more concerned that some parents fear possible side effects of vaccines more than the diseases they are supposed to guard against. While such fears on rare occasions may be real, more often they are unproved and alarmist, the doctors say. Debbie Andres isn't sure what to believe. 'I think it was an incredible coincidence'Andres' daughter Elise was 8 weeks old when she came down with a high fever and was diagnosed with viral meningitis just 24 hours after being receiving a series of routine vaccinations.
Was there a connection? The pediatrician said no, but still, the Dallas mother wondered. "I think it was an incredible coincidence and I'd like to believe that." There's an overwhelming consensus in the medical community that events like this are coincidental. "We know that some children are going to develop these other illnesses anyway," says Dr. Neal Halsey of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University. "There will be times when they're temporarily related but that's not evidence of an increased risk, it's a chance occurrence." Babies get a series of shotsToday, by the time a child reaches a year and a half, a pediatrician will probably recommend that he or she get a total of 16 doses of six different vaccines -- hepatitis B, DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), Hib (H. influenza type b), polio, MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), and chickenpox. A seventh -- the pneumococcal vaccine, which prevents bacterial meningitis and ear infections -- is expected to be added to the list of recommended vaccines within weeks. Because so many vaccines are given at one time, research is being done to make sure they don't interact in a dangerous way. "When given simultaneously, they need to be continually looked at," Halsey told CNN. "Manufacturers are trying to see if they can be combined and there are careful studies that are being done."
With diseases down, parents become complacentVaccination is considered the century's biggest public health success. Vaccines eradicated smallpox. Polio, one of the most feared diseases until an effective vaccine for the paralyzing virus was found in 1955, could disappear in a few years. Measles killed more than 2,000 American children in a single year -- 1941. Last year, the nation recorded just 100 measles cases. Yet, let up on vaccination before a disease is eradicated and it rapidly bounces back. The United States lapsed with measles inoculations in 1989, and 55,000 people got sick and 120 died. When diphtheria immunization recently dipped in Russia, 2,000 cases occurred -- just waiting for an unvaccinated tourist to carry the disease home. Even as doctors worry about complacency, reports abound about possible vaccine side effects -- from scary media stories to Internet sites. Vaccines are not perfect. They sometimes cause problems. But as Surgeon General David Satcher has told Congress, study after study proves serious side effects are rare -- tens of millions of vaccine doses are given safely every year. Vaccine side effectsPublic health experts do work to minimize side effects. That's why a vaccine against rotavirus, the leading cause of severe childhood diarrhea, was pulled off the market last week. Doctors monitored the possibility that the year-old vaccine might increase infants' risk of a rare but dangerous bowel obstruction, and stopped vaccinations when clues emerged that it did. Certainly, tolerance for vaccine side effects wanes as the disease does. Take the oral polio vaccine, a potent live-virus vaccine but one that carried a small risk of actually causing polio. By the mid-1990s, about 10 of the 4 million American children who swallowed the vaccine each year caught polio from it. Parents vehemently objected, and now a polio shot that eliminates that threat is used instead. But what really worries doctors is the spread of alarming and unproved allegations, such as claims linking the decades-old measles vaccine to autism. Parents in parts of Britain have held "measles parties," deliberately exposing children to measles so they would get the disease very young and consequently avoid vaccination. Scientific studies find no evidence that the measles vaccine causes autism -- but measles itself can be worse than just a rashy rite of passage. Among the complications: One in every 1,000 measles patients gets encephalitis, and one in four of those who do will die or suffer neurological damage, says Dr. Bruce Gellin of Vanderbilt University. Gellen directs a new National Immunization Information Network that is researching how to help doctors give parents the most scientifically sound vaccine information. "What people don't understand is they're putting their children at a true risk of complications from measles against ... at best a hypothetical and totally unproven argument about autism," he said. Recovered from meningitisElise Andres, now 6 months old, recovered from her bout with meningitis and despite some lingering concerns, her parents still believe in vaccines. "Whether it's fever, irritability, whatever it may be, we're willing to take that risk rather than the risk of getting the disease itself," the girl's mother told CNN. Experts say the benefits far outweigh the potential danger. And that's what they want parents to know. Correspondent Rhonda Rowland and The Associated Press contributed to this report, written by Jim Morris. RELATEDS AT  :
New vaccine is first to prevent pneumonia in children RELATED STORIES: Flu shots - Protection for everyone RELATED SITES: Johns Hopkins Infectious Diseases
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Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland talks with parents and doctors about the many vaccinations now given to children
