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Should You Refuse Vaccines?

Apr 03 05:29am

A few days ago, the front page of the New York Times carried a sad story. More and more parents are refusing to give their children vaccines. They believe that vaccines can cause autism or other developmental problems. They feel that they need to protect their children from these dangers, even if it means exposing them to the risk of infections such as measles or meningitis.

There are not absolute truths in science. Parents are the best judges of what their children need. Pediatricians are in the business of helping parents make decisions; the parents are the deciders. I believe all of this, but I also believe that parents who refuse vaccines are misinformed and they are making a dangerous mistake.

Many, many studies have looked for a connection between vaccines and autism, and these studies have found no connection. Of course there are plenty of stories about children who were fine, who got vaccinated, and who then developed autism. But these stories do not mean that the vaccines caused the autism.

Many children get vaccines around ages 1 to 2, and many show signs of autism around the same time. Therefore, vaccines and autism are bound to happen together just by chance. And that is just what the science shows: The events happen together as often as one would expect based on chance alone, and no more often. There is no evidence that one thing causes the other.

And, even if vaccines did cause autism in a very small number of cases, you would still need to balance the risk of getting vaccines against the risk of not getting them. And that risk of not getting vaccines is high. Before there were vaccines, many thousands of children died each year, or were brain-damaged or paralyzed, by preventable illnesses.

I'm about as paranoid as most people. I do believe that drug companies are in business, first, to make money. I do believe that they often spend millions of dollars marketing unneeded or even dangerous drugs. But, vaccines are not a big profit item. In fact, many drug companies have dropped out of the vaccine business because there isn't much money in it. So, I don't believe that there is a conspiracy to push harmful vaccines on unsuspecting children.

I do think that autism is on the rise (some experts disagree), and I suspect that one of the main causes is pollution - heavy metals, insecticides, industrial byproducts, etc. There is an ongoing debate about this among scientists. But, if substances like mercury are causing autism, I think it is likely to be mercury in mothers, acting during pregnancy on their unborn babies' developing brains.

It is much less likely that a small amount of mercury, or other pollutants, would have profound effects on the brain of a 15-month-old, which is already mostly formed. So, my advice to mothers is, do watch what you eat, try to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And do get your children immunized.

146 Comments Report Abuse

1. jasoncarter_1999 - Apr 03 08:37am

Why risk it? Not enough is known about how our immune systems function. Why not wait til they are older and stronger?Isn't it possible that some of the autoimmune disorders could be caused by vaccines? I

2. jasperkristy - Apr 03 08:53am

I know that there are alot of children being diagnosed with Autism I hope that one of these days they come up with something to control this illness.

3. sev35iii - Apr 03 08:54am

As a mother of two austistic boys, I have to say thank you. So many people are still saying that vaccines are the cause of autism, but there has been study after study after study that shows there is no correlation between the two. On top of that, there has been absolute proof that vaccines save lives. Many thousands. To not vaccinate your child puts the society in which we live at risk to have diseases we thought gone run rampant. Polio, anyone? I think that as a society, we have to take the individual responsibility to protect each other.

4. sev35iii - Apr 03 08:57am

Autism is not an illness or a disease. It is a developmental disorder that affects the way a child deals with and is able to see the world around them. As of right now there is no answer as to why it happens, but they are leaning towards environmental or genetic.

5. bbnsherry - Apr 03 09:00am

Thank you! I am in complete agreement with all you say. Of course, parents have the right to try to protect their children in the best way possible. Failure to vaccinate children exposes not only their children but also the population at large to the risks of contagious diseases. I have been a pediatrician for 37 years. I have seen the horror of H flu meningitis and pneumococcal meningitis, and have watched those plagues almost diappear with immunization. I have seen tetanus and diphtheria in patients from Mexico when I lived in southern California--virtually eliminated by vaccination. I was a victim of polio in the '50s--no longer a serious problem in our country. My best friend in the first grade died from complications of measles which we all developed--now an outbreak is newsworthy . Until this year, the most common cause for our admissions to the hospital during the winter months was rotovirus diarrhea--this year the admissions are close to zero for this condition due to rotovirus vaccination. I am excited about the HPV vaccine and the possibility of elimination of cervical cancer in women and potentially penile cancer in men in my lifetime. I have omitted several other immunizations which are deserving of comment such as rubella, mumps, chicken pox. I do not like to be the first to use vaccines when they emerge, but with most of the vaccines available today, we have years of experience and multiple millions of doses of use. There is probably nothing we do in medicine which has such a positive impact on disease with such little in the way of complications.
I have several families who object to immunizations on religious and other grounds. I do not refuse to treat these families as some do, but I try to insure that they are as informed as I can make them about vaccine issues.
Thank again for your timely and cogent discussion of the topic.

6. wendymacisco - Apr 03 09:15am

I personally know a child who was fine before getting her vaccines then became very sick from the MMR vaccine and was severely brain damaged afterwords the Dr. said it was from the vaccine. don't we always find out our mistakes years later .. so why is 1 in 150 children now becoming autistic after being pumped with toxic levels of mercury filled vaccines ? our vaccines are not safe for all children we need to step back and look at the way we administer them i am not saying to not give them all together that's not safe for our children either but maybe spread them out more so the toxins can be processed out their little body's before we overload them or maybe even see if their is a way to lower the mercury levels in many of our vaccines. it is time to think of the children and not who is right and who is wrong the facts are that 1 in 150 children are autistic that is way too high an average don't you think with out knowing the reasons why.

7. wendymacisco - Apr 03 09:17am

8. wendymacisco - Apr 03 09:25am

9. prymas - Apr 03 10:02am

Disheartening, really, that you dare to say children are developing high levels of mercury from their mothers, and not environmental toxins which surround us and have invaded our food supply. You say all a mother has to do is watch what she eats, breathe clean air and drink lots of water and her child will be fine--directly implying that the mother is causing this EPIDEMIC. Wise up, Doctor, and stop poisoning our children with unnecessary vaccinations.

10. elizabeth135095 - Apr 03 10:15am

Many vaccines don't contain mercury. If you're so worried about it, ask the doctor for the slip that comes in the vaccine package. If you only want to avoid vaccinations just because you're too ignorant to consider the possibility that it's not the vaccine's problem, then that's not the doctor's problem. If you have a concern, take it up with the doctor, not out on your child.