Childhood Vaccinations: 
Know The Routine !

What every parent should know about the vaccines that keep kids safe from disease.

One hundred years ago, approximately half of all children born in the United States died by the age of 5, many of them from diseases that are prevented by vaccines today. 
By 1979, the dreaded smallpox had been wiped out entirely, thanks to a worldwide vaccination effort. Today, vaccines have eliminated polio in the Western Hemisphere and have nearly eliminated measles in this country. 

With each vaccine developed, more lives are saved and millions of children are spared needless suffering. In recent years, a small but highly vocal group of people has been claiming that vaccines themselves may cause side effects worse than the diseases they're meant to prevent. Alarmist articles quoting these antivaccine factions may have led some parents to wonder whether vaccines are worth the supposed risks. 

"Scientists and physicians who work in the field of disease prevention understand these concerns," says Neal A. Halsey, M.D., director of the Division of Disease Control and of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. "But we also understand that the issue of side effects is being raised primarily because we have the luxury of living in a time and place in which the risk of the major diseases has been reduced or eliminated. The reality is that vaccines are enormously safe and continue to offer the best protection against potentially serious illness. If we stopped vaccinating, the diseases would return." 

How Vaccines Work:

When a naturally occurring disease-causing pathogen, such as bacteria or a virus, enters your body, your immune system produces antibodies to destroy that specific invader. If the same pathogen is encountered a second time, the immune system recognizes it and produces antibodies much more quickly, killing the pathogen before symptoms can develop. That's why someone who had a disease such as measles as a child is immune to the disease later. Vaccines work by the same principle. "By being exposed to a small portion of the pathogen," explains Dr. Halsey, "the body is able to make antibodies to fight the disease without actually having to suffer the illness. 

The number of doses depends on the type and strength of the vaccine and how the body's immune system responds." For some vaccines, such as tetanus, periodic booster shots may be required to keep immunity high. Vaccines occasionally cause temporary mild side effects, such as fever, muscle aches and swelling or discomfort at the injection site. Serious side effects are rare. 

To minimize fear and needless worry, parents should ask for and read the Vaccine Information Statements (VIS) before their children are vaccinated, or immunized. These statements explain the diseases, the relevant vaccines and what side effects (if any) might be expected. (Statements are available online from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.) 

The Seven Childhood Vaccines Current guidelines call for children to receive a total of 23 doses of seven different vaccines protecting against 10 diseases. 

Getting Better All The Time 

Researchers are constantly looking for ways to improve vaccines and keep the public safe against diseases and vaccination side effects. To make vaccination less traumatic for children (and their parents), scientists are working to develop more combination vaccines that will deliver the same degree of protection with fewer injections. In the future, some vaccines may even be delivered by nasal spray — starting with an influenza vaccine that should become available by the end of 2000.
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