Immunizations - general overview

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Immunizations

(Page 2)

Immunizations help protect infants, children, and adults against many infections that used to be much more common.

• Examples include tetanus, diphtheria, mumps, measles, pertussis (whooping cough), meningitis, and polio.
• Newer immunizations protect children and adults against other types of meningitis, pneumonia, and ear infections.

Many of these infections can cause serious or life-threatening illnesses, and may lead to lifelong disabilities. Because of immunizations, all of these illnesses are now rare.

SAFETY OF IMMUNIZATIONS

Many parents are worried that some vaccines are not safe and may harm their baby or young child. They may ask their doctor or nurse to wait, or even refuse to have the vaccine. However, it is important to also think about the risks of not having the vaccination.

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Some people believe that vaccines cause autism or ADHD. They are worried that a small amount of mercury (called thimerosal) that is used as a preservative in multidose vaccines will cause these problems. Multidose means that many doses of vaccine come in one bottle.

However, studies have NOT shown this risk to be true.

• Experts such as The American Academy of Pediatrics, and The Institute of Medicine (IOM) agree that no vaccine or part of any vaccine is responsible for the number of children who are currently being diagnosed with autism.
• They conclude that the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks.

If you are still worried about the risk of autism or ADHD, ask your doctor or nurse about single-dose forms of the vaccine. All of the routine childhood vaccines are available in single-dose forms, and they do not contain added mercury.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website provides further information.

Other risks you may have heard about include:

• Some parents are worried that they or their child can get the infection from some vaccines, such as the MMR, chickenpox (varicella), or nasal spray flu vaccines. However, unless you have a weakened immune system, this is very unlikely.
• Although very rare, allergic reactions to some part of the vaccines are possible.
• Certain live vaccines may be very dangerous to the fetus of a pregnant woman. These include: the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine, and the Flu-Mist nasal spray vaccine.