Doc Talk: Importance of vaccinating your child and dangers it can pose if you don't
In our weekly feature, 'Doc Talk,' pediatric emergency doctor, Clint Pollack from Valley Children's Hospital talks about the importance of vaccination and the dangers it can pose to the public if you don't.
Dr. Pollack says vaccines work by imitating an infection without causing illness.
He says this can be done by using pieces of germs (antigens) which the immune system can react to or using weakened or "dead" (inactivated) germs that cannot cause infection.
According to Dr. Pollack, the immune system develops a response to that germ which will allow it to protect your child if they are exposed to the actual virus or bacteria.
He says your body has no immunity to infection until it has been exposed to that germ at least once.
Dr. Pollack says young children usually receive several different vaccines at one time. These will not overload the immune system.
The human immune system is exposed to thousands of antigens every day.
He says vaccines are extremely important for protecting children against infection from about 14 different illnesses which can be very dangerous or even fatal.
The World Health Organization estimates that measles vaccination prevented more than 21 million deaths worldwide since 2000.
In the last flu season of 2017-2018, about 80,000 Americans died from the disease.
There are side effects and risks associated with vaccines, as with any medication.
Dr. Pollack says the most common side effects are soreness, redness, and swelling at the injection site. Fever, tiredness, muscle aches and pains, and mild URI symptoms may also occur.
He says vaccines are extremely safe. They are continually tested and monitored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Pollack says there is no link between childhood vaccinations and autism. This has been repeatedly proven with multiple different scientific studies.
There was a single study published in the Lancet (a British medical journal) in 1998 that associated autism with the MMR vaccine, but it has since been discredited because the author falsified data and also was financially involved with lawyers for parents of children in the study.
A Danish study was published in March 2019 that looked at > 650,000 children and found no difference in the rates of autism when comparing children who received or did not receive the MMR vaccine.
