There was a man with tongue of wood

If there is one aspect of health we care most about, it is that of our children.

We are afraid to do the wrong thing, which might be doing something and might be doing nothing.

Vaccinations are the first major encounter our children have with the health care system.

By major I mean:

Under the recommended plan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children today are vaccinated against 14 infectious diseases, receiving up to 24 vaccines by their second birthday, and up to five in one office visit.

There has been controversy about the frequency of vaccinations, about the content of vaccines, and about the necessity of the vaccines at all in the absence of the diseases they protect against.

The last reported case of diphtheria in the US occurred in 2003.

The last reported case of polio in the US occurred in 1986.

I do not claim to know the incidence and severity of side effects and reaction to these and other vaccines.

Here is what I know:

1. When a disease like smallpox was eradicated, the routine vaccination was halted.
2. The diseases that we are vaccinated against have not been eradicated. We live in a small world: we travel to other countries, and others travel here. HIV/AIDS was brought here on a plane. We do not want to be like the Native Americans, wiped out by diseases from Europe because we were not vaccinated.
3. The risk and incidence of reactions are minimal compared to the severity of an infectious outbreak.
4. Science brought us the life-saving vaccines, not hunch or intuition.
5. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has issued a report on childhood immunizations and found:
   1. the childhood immunization schedule is considered one of the most effective and safest public health interventions available to prevent serious disease and death. Furthermore, the committee’s review of the literature did not find high quality evidence supporting safety concerns about the immunization schedule.
   2. The committee’s efforts to identify priorities for recommended research studies did not reveal an evidence base suggesting that the childhood immunization schedule is linked to autoimmune diseases, asthma, hypersensitivity, seizures, child developmental disorders, learning disorders or developmental disorders, or attention deficit or disruptive behavior disorders.
   3. The committee found no significant evidence to imply that the recommended immunization schedule is not safe.

The bottom line: in all of our health care decisions we are playing the odds–life never affords us certainty. The odds favor vaccination according to schedule. Listen to your pediatrician–vaccinate your children.