Vaccine safety concerns may discourage parents

Most parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids do so out of fear that the vaccine will cause more harm than the disease it prevents, according to a new study.

However, study author Dr. Daniel A. Salmon of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland cautioned that vaccines are “extremely safe and effective,” and parents who don’t vaccinate their children are leaving them—and other children—vulnerable to deadly diseases.

For instance, Salmon noted that many parents in England and Scotland have chosen not to vaccinate their children against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), causing outbreaks of these life-threatening illnesses.

Furthermore, as he and colleagues report the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, unvaccinated American children had a 35-fold higher risk of measles in recent years.

Salmon recommended that public health officials focus their efforts on educating parents about the safety of vaccines, and the dangers of the diseases they prevent.

“There are parents that have concerns out there,” he said. “But vaccines are extremely safe and effective.”

A recent survey suggested a growing number of U.S. parents are beginning to question either the need for vaccines for their children, or the need to follow the recommended schedule of multiple shots between the ages of 3 months and 3 years.

Part of those concerns stem from previous reports that linked the MMR vaccine to autism, although more recent research has overwhelmingly shown that one has nothing to do with the other.

To investigate why parents choose not to vaccinate their kids, Salmon and his colleagues reviewed surveys from 2435 parents about their vaccination choices. Two hundred and seventy-seven children had received a non-medical exemption from some type of vaccination.

Nearly 7 out of 10 parents who requested non-medical exemptions said they did so out of concern that the vaccine may cause harm.

“Vaccine safety was really the biggest issue,” Salmon said.

Parents of exempt children were also more likely to say they had little faith in the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, and were unconcerned about their children’s risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Parents who didn’t vaccinate their children also tended to have less faith in vaccine information provided by the government, medical sources and public health officials.

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, May, 2005.

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