Some parents still fear vaccines

It's a rite of passage for babies, toddlers and even teenagers: rolling up the sleeve, dropping the drawers and bracing for the vaccine. The effort to get children protected against measles, mumps and other childhood scourges has saved countless lives over the decades. But a new study finds that more than half of all parents continue to fear serious side effects of vaccines despite other medical studies that have given the shots the all clear. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that while 90 percent of parents say vaccines are a good way to protect their kids, and 88 percent follow their doctor's vaccination recommendations, 54 percent are worried about serious side effects.

That worry has translated into a delay in getting vaccines - which opens children up to the risk of contracting a potentially fatal yet preventable disease - and in some cases parents' refusal of certain vaccines altogether. Researchers found that 12 percent of parents have refused at least one of the vaccines recommended to them by their child's pediatrician. The vaccines most often shunned were newer ones, including those for chickenpox, meningococcal conjugate, and human papillomavirus (HPV). The study findings were published in the March 1 online edition of Pediatrics.

While perhaps frustrating to doctors, parents' fears are certainly understandable. When it comes to vaccines - new vaccines especially - it can feel like it's hard to know whom to trust. The first time some parents ever heard of a new vaccine to protect girls against cervical cancer (HPV) was in news reports that the vaccine's maker wanted state lawmakers to require girls get the shot in order to attend public school. And despite overwhelming evidence of the swine flu's ability to put a young healthy person in intensive care in a matter of hours, some parents refused to allow their children to receive that vaccine when it finally became available last year. Many told pollsters and the media they feared the vaccine was too new, had been rushed to market and was not fully vetted. Even a recent study by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which assured parents of the swine flu vaccine's safety, has not reached the hard-core doubters.

But the biggest culprit behind vaccine fear-mongering is, ironically, one of the most respected medical journals around. In 1998 the medical journal The Lancet published a study that liked autism to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. For more than a decade that study put fear in the hearts of parents, especially those parents whose children appeared to develop normally and later regressed when autism symptoms appeared. The Lancet retracted that study last month, saying it was based on false information. So far, though, parents appear either not to have gotten the news or they feel it is just one more piece of conflicting information that is too common in the world of medical studies these days.

It's too bad that parents continue to believe in a link between autism and vaccines, because that issue has been scientifically laid to rest. It can be hard to trust when parents feel they have been deceived, but for the sake of the health of their child - and their child's friends and classmates - they should indeed take their doctor's advice on childhood illness vaccines. But parents are right to demand that new vaccines undergo rigorous testing before they go to market, and they are right to demand their state lawmakers resist pressure from vaccine makers to require their product in order to attend school. The only thing that should drive the decision to vaccinate should be personal and public health, not profit.

Photo Credit: Julien Harneis