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Childhood vaccines are safe, effective

UPDATE: Since this article appeared in July of 2008, a special federal vaccine court has ruled in three different cases that there is no medical evidence linking childhood vaccinations and autism.

Childhood immunizations are smart, safe and effective, Marshfield Clinic pediatricians agree. In fact, they are S.A.N.E.R., said Pediatrician Jeffrey Lamont, M.D., of the Clinic’s Weston Center. He explains:

S = safe. “Vaccines are safe. Reactions are few and mild compared to the frequency and severity of the diseases they prevent,” said Dr. Lamont, who is president of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Some people are concerned about mercury-containing preservatives, such as Thimerosal, which was used in vaccines for decades, fearing a link to autism. The incidence of autism began to increase only recently, Dr. Lamont noted, and it has not decreased since Thimerosal was removed from most vaccines seven years ago. “The mercury in the vaccine preservative has not been associated with autism in any reliable, scientifically valid study,” he said. Some studies suggest autism may have a genetic basis.

A = available, affordable, accessible. “Perhaps no public health measure is more widely available, even fluoridated water,” Dr. Lamont said.

N = necessary. None of the diseases prevented by vaccination have been eradicated, except smallpox. “Wherever the incidence and prevalence of vaccination are allowed to decline in a population, outbreaks of vaccinepreventable diseases occur, as we have seen just this year with measles,” he said.

E = effective. Vaccines are among the most clinically effective and cost effective public health measures ever devised, Dr. Lamont says. “There is irony in the fact that the more effective a prevention program is, the less evidence it leaves that it is, or was ever, necessary.”

R = responsible, right. “Vaccination is a part of being a responsible parent, a responsible citizen,” Dr. Lamont said. Vaccines protect individuals and entire populations from diseases that are highly contagious, and they make that person far less able to spread the disease to others.

For more information, contact Marshfield Clinic Pediatrics or The Registry for Effectively Communicating Immunization Needs (RECIN).

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