By: Robert Kaplan, M.D. and Joel Widelitz, M.D. ,Kaplan & Widelitz Pediatrics, Christopher Babbitt, M.D., medical director, pediatric intensive care unit, Audra Devekis, M.D., medical director, infectious diseases, Gary Feldman, M.D, medical director, Stramski Children’s Developmental Center, Divya Joshi, M.D.,MMM, CPE, FAAP, chief medical officer, Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach
As a Children’s Hospital and your pediatricians and pediatric specialists, our primary goal is to keep children healthy and to heal them when they are sick. Whether it is helping you choose a car seat, discussing nutrition or recommending immunizations, your children’s best interests are our first priority. We are very concerned that some vaccine-preventable diseases are infecting unvaccinated U.S. children causing severe illness, hospitalizations and death.
Making the choice to fully immunize your child is an important decision. We know there is a lot of confusing information out there about immunizations. We want you to have the facts, and as your Children’s Hospital and your pediatricians and specialists, we can help you get those facts. Because when it comes to immunizations, there may not be a second chance if you delay or refuse these important vaccines.
We now know that fears of developing autism from vaccines are unfounded. The research that raised this concern has recently been proven to be mistaken.
Some parents worry about the discomfort of having multiple vaccines at one time, but we have to remember the possible consequence of not giving the vaccines the way they are intended to be given! The timing and schedule of vaccines for children have been developed over many years of research to be optimal in the prevention of these diseases.
We know that immunizations save lives and prevent severe disabilities. Since the advent of vaccines over 50 years ago, we don’t see as many serious diseases like measles, smallpox, chickenpox or meningitis, to name a few.
We now face a new problem: because some parents don’t allow their children to be fully immunized, we are seeing some of these diseases return. In fact, over the last few years we have seen increasing cases of pertussis (whooping cough), measles, pneumococcal and meningococcal meningitis. Some of these diseases have caused deaths. This should not happen in the United States in the 21st century!
When you make the decision to delay or reject vaccinations there are real risks – for your child and for all the other children. These vaccine-preventable diseases are still alive in our communities. We haven’t seen that much of them because of the vaccinations. If your child is un-immunized, he/she can spread the disease to other un-immunized young infants, or children who cannot be immunized – like children with cancer. You are also putting at risk other members in the household, day care and school contacts and other patients in the doctors office, when a child comes in ill. In some physician offices, patients will not be accepted at the practice, if they are un-immunized.
We are lucky to live in the U.S. with our wonderful health care system. Preventing disease is one of the mainstays of our system and what we do as Pediatricians. We have been lucky so far to have good “herd immunity” in our community, which has kept many of these diseases at a minimum so far. Last year we had over 10 infants die of pertussis here in California, and a few patients were treated for pertussis right here at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach.
We feel that children who are not fully immunized should not be allowed to attend pre-school or other child care facilities, unless there is a medical reason to not receive certain immunizations. If your child is in grade school and not fully immunized, we agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics that they must be isolated during any outbreaks of these disease until the incubation period is over. This will protect your child and others from getting ill. But, it may also lead to parents having to stay home from work to care for their isolated child.
For more information about immunizations and your children you can look at our Miller Children’s web page at www.mchlb.org. You can also speak with your Pediatrician or look at our American Academy of Pediatrics website at www.aap.org, or www.vaccineinformation.org.
Understand the risks you will be taking and your responsibilities to your child and your community.