Tag: delaying vaccines

What Is the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules?

There is plenty of evidence that the standard immunization schedule is safe and effective.

What about the alternative vaccine schedules that some folks push?

Is there any evidence that is safe to delay or skip any of your child’s vaccines?

Alternative Vaccine Schedules

Many people think of Dr. Bob Sears when they think of alternative vaccine schedules.

Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends in 2010 for the segment
Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends for the segment “Vaccines: A Bad Combination?”

He created both:

  • Dr Bob’s Selective Vaccine Schedule
  • Dr Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule

He didn’t invent the idea of the alternative vaccine schedule though.

Well before Dr. Bob appeared on the scene, Dr. Jay Gordon had been on Good Morning America with Cindy Crawford to discuss vaccines and how she had decided to delay vaccinating her baby.

Where did she get the idea?

After the segment, Dr. Jay stated:

“They edited the segment to make me sound like a vaccination proponent. We also have to understand the impact of a person as well-known as Cindy Crawford delaying vaccines for over six months.”

Jay Gordon

Dr. Jay has long talked about only giving infants one vaccine at a time and waiting until they are “developmentally solid” before vaccinating.

1983 historical immunization schedule
When Bob Sears came out with his vaccine book, Jenny McCarthy was also pushing the too many too soon myth and rallying folks to go back to the 1983 schedule that left kids at risk for meningitis, pneumonia, blood infections, severe dehydration, epiglottitis, and cancer from Hib, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, chicken pox, HPV, and meningococcal disease.

Similarly, other folks have pushed ideas about delaying and skipping vaccines before Dr. Bob, including:

  • Donald Miller and his User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule – no vaccines until age two years and no live vaccines and when you begin vaccinating your child, give them one at a time, every six months (first published in 2004)
  • Stephanie Cave – starts at 4 months and delays many vaccines
  • homeopaths with immunization schedules that say to wait until six months and then start giving nosodes every five days
  • chiropractors with immunization plans that say to get regular chiropractic adjustments instead of vaccines
  • Paul Thomas‘ vaccine friendly plan
  • Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue’s Turn Back the Clock immunization plan which recommends substituting the latest schedule with the 1983 immunization schedule or a schedule from another country, like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, or Iceland.

Of course, Dr. Bob is the one who popularized the idea of the alternative vaccine schedule in 2007, when he published The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child.

That’s when parents started to bring copies of his schedule into their pediatrician’s office, requesting to follow Dr. Bob’s schedule instead of the standard immunization schedule from the CDC.

What’s the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules?

There is no evidence that following an alternative vaccine schedule is safe for your kids.

“No alternative vaccine schedules have been evaluated and found to provide better safety or efficacy than the recommended schedule, supported by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the CDC and the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the AAP (the committee that produces the Red Book).

Pediatricians who routinely recommend limiting the numbers of vaccines administered at a single visit such that vaccines are administered late are providing care that deviates from the standard evidence-based schedule recommended by these bodies.”

American Academy of Pediatrics

What’s the first clue that these so-called alternative vaccine schedules have absolutely no evidence behind them?

They are all different!

Paul Thomas, for example, doesn’t even offer his patients the rotavirus vaccine. Dr. Bob, on the other hand, has it on his list of vaccines that “that could protect a baby from a very potentially life-threatening or very common serious illness” and is sure to give it at 2, 4, and 6 months.

How slow should you go?

Both Dr. Bob and Dr. Paul give two vaccines at a time with their schedules, but Dr. Jay and Dr. Miller say to give just one at a time.

“Would any scientist give SIX vaccines at once to a baby? Asking for trouble. One at a time makes so much more sense.”

Jay Gordon

And while some start their schedules at 2 or 4 months, others delay until 6 months or 2 years.

There is also the fact that the folks who create these schedules admit that there is no evidence for what they are doing…

“No one’s ever researched to see what happens if you delay vaccines. And do babies handle vaccines better when they’re older? This is really just a typical fear that parents have when their babies are young and small and more vulnerable. Since I don’t know one way or the other, I’m just happy to work with these parents, understand their fears and their worries, and agree to vaccinate them in a way that they feel is safer for their baby.”

Bob Sears on The Vaccine War

But there has been research on delaying vaccines.

Unvaccinated kids aren’t healthier – they just get more vaccine preventable diseases. Most of which are life-threatening, even in this age of modern medicine, with access to good nutrition and sanitation.

So whether you only get one or two vaccines at a time; delay until four months, six months, or two years before you get started; skip all live vaccines or just wait until your child is “developmentally solid” to give them;  or go with some other non-standard, parent-selected, delayed protection vaccine schedule, the only things that you can be sure of is that there is no evidence to support your decision and that you will leave your kids unprotected and at risk for getting a vaccine-preventable disease.

“…when I give your six-week-old seven different vaccines with two dozen antigens, I am supposed to try to convince you that the adverse reactions you have heard about are just coincidences.”

Jay Gordon

Better yet though. Find a pediatrician who will listen and answer your questions about vaccines, concerns about vaccine myths and misinformation, explain that no vaccine is optional, and not just simply pander to  your fears.

What to Know About the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules

There is no evidence that skipping or delaying any vaccines with an alternative vaccine schedules can keep your kids safe from vaccine preventable diseases.

More on the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules

What to Do If Your Child Is Exposed to Meningitis

Meningitis is classically defined as an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord, and it can be caused by:

  • viruses – also called aseptic meningitis, it can be caused by enteroviruses, measles, mumps, and herpes, etc.
  • bacteria – Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, Listeria monocytogenes, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Group B strep
  • a fungus – Cryptococcus, Histoplasma
  • parasites – uncommon
  • amebas – Naegleria fowleri

Surprisingly, there are even non-infectious causes of meningitis. These might be include side-effects of a medication or that the child’s meningitis is a part of another systemic illness.

What to Do If Your Child Is Exposed to Meningitis

While meningitis can be contagious, it greatly depends on the type of meningitis to which they are exposed as to whether or not your child is at any risk.

Teens and young adults need two different kinds of meningococcal vaccines to get full protection.
Teens and young adults need two different kinds of meningococcal vaccines to get full protection.

So while the general advice is to “tell your doctor if you think you have been exposed to someone with meningitis,” you should try and gather as much information as you can about the exposure.

This information will hopefully include the type of meningitis they were exposed to, specifically if it was bacterial or viral, the exact organism if it has been identified, and how close of an exposure it was – were they simply in the same school or actually sitting next to each other in the same room.

For example, while the CDC states that “people who are close contacts of a person with meningococcal or Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) meningitis are at increased risk of getting infected and may need preventive antibiotics,” they also state that “close contacts of a person with meningitis caused by other bacteria, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, do not need antibiotics.”

And you often don’t need to take any preventive measures if you are exposed to someone with viral meningitis.

While that might sound scary, it is basically because you typically aren’t at big risk after this kind of exposure. You could get the same virus, but the chances that it would spread and also cause meningitis are very unlikely.

Not only does Viera Scheibner think that vaccines cause SIDS and shaken baby syndrome, she thinks they are contaminated with amoeba.
The Naegleria fowleri ameba that can cause meningitis can be found in warm freshwater, including lakes and rivers.

Other types of meningitis, like primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) and fungal and parasitic meningitis aren’t even contagious.

The Histoplasma fungus spreads from bird or bat droppings, for example, not from one person to another.

And parasites typically spread from ingesting raw or undercooked food, or in the case of Baylisascaris procyonis, from ingesting something contaminated with infectious parasite eggs in raccoon feces.

What to Do If Your Unvaccinated Child Is Exposed to Meningitis

Vaccines can prevent a number of different types of meningitis.

From Hib and Prevnar to MMR and the meningococcal vaccines, our children routinely get several vaccines to prevent meningitis.

While these meningitis vaccines don’t protect us from all of the different types of viruses, bacteria, and other organisms that can cause meningitis, they do prevent many of the most common.

So what do you do if your unvaccinated child is exposed to meningitis?

You should immediately call your pediatrician or local healthy department, because they might need:

  • antibiotics (usually rifampin, ciprofloxacin, or ceftriaxone) if the meningitis was caused by Neisseria meningitidis
  • antibiotics (rifampin) if the meningitis was caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)

The availability of these antibiotics isn’t a good reason to skip or delay getting vaccinated though, as you won’t always know when your kids have been exposed to meningitis and not all types of vaccine-preventable meningitis can be prevented with antibiotics.

Of course, getting fully vaccinated on time is the best way to prevent many of these types of meningitis and other life-threatening diseases.

What to Do If Your Vaccinated Child Is Exposed to Meningitis

Even if your child is vaccinated, they might still need preventative antibiotics if they are exposed to someone with Hib or meningococcal meningitis, as vaccines are not 100% effective.

“Regardless of immunization status, close contacts of all people with invasive meningococcal disease , whether endemic or in an outbreak situation, are at high risk of infection and should receive chemoprophylaxis.”

AAP Red Book on Meningococcal Infections

This is especially true if they are not fully vaccinated.

Remember, to be fully vaccinated against Haemophilus influenzae type b, kids get a 2 or 3 dose primary series of the Hib vaccine when they are infants and a booster dose once they are 12 months old.

In the case of exposure to Hib meningitis, antibiotic prophylaxis would be recommended if:

  • the child is fully vaccinated, but there is a young child, under age 4 years, in the house who is unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated
  • the child is fully vaccinated, but there is another child in the house who is immunocompromised
  • the child is only partially vaccinated and under age 4 years
  • there is an outbreak in a preschool or daycare, with 2 or more cases within 60 days

And anyone exposed to someone with meningococcal meningitis should likely get antibiotics (chemoprophylaxis), even if they are fully vaccinated.

Talk to your pediatrician or local health department if your child is exposed to meningitis and you aren’t sure what to do, whether or not your child has been vaccinated.

What to Know About Getting Exposed to Meningitis

Learn what to do if your child is exposed to someone with meningitis, especially if they are unvaccinated, or have been exposed to someone with Hib meningitis or meningococcal disease.

More on Getting Exposed to Meningitis

The Benefits and Risks of Delaying Vaccines

Believe it or not, some pediatricians think it is a good idea to delay vaccines.

“Wait until a child is clearly developmentally “solid” before vaccinating because we just don’t know which children will react badly to immunizations.”

Dr. Jay Gordon

In fact, Dr. Bob wrote a whole book pushing his own immunization schedule!

Not surprisingly, there are no benefits to skipping or delaying your child’s vaccines, but there are plenty of risks.

What Are the Risks of Delaying Vaccines?

Of course, the biggest risk of delaying your child’s vaccines is that they will get a disease that they could have been vaccinated and protected against.

“In 1989, the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine was relatively new and not yet routine. I was aware of the vaccine’s availability, but, busy mom that I was, I had not yet made the trip to the health department to get the immunization for my two-year-old daughter, Sarah. I will always regret that bit of procrastination and the anguish that it caused.”

Peggy Archer

Although we are much more used to hearing vaccine injury scare stories, if you are thinking of delaying your child’s vaccines, there are also many personal stories of parents who regret not vaccinating their children that you should review.

You can wait too long to get a tetanus shot...
You can wait too long to get a tetanus shot… Photo by Petrus Rudolf de Jong (CC BY 3.0)

It is true that the risk may be very small for a disease like polio, which is close to being eradicated worldwide, but it is not zero.

Consider that the last case of polio occurred in 2005, when an unvaccinated 22-year-old U.S. college student became infected with polio vaccine virus while traveling to Costa Rica in a university-sponsored study-abroad program.

So you might not get wild polio unless you visit specific regions of Afghanistan or Pakistan, but you might want to be concerned about vaccine-associated polio if you go to a country that is still giving the oral polio vaccine.

And the risk is certainly much higher than zero for most other vaccine-preventable diseases, as we see from the regular outbreaks of measles, mumps, and pertussis, etc.

Some studies even suggest that delaying your child’s vaccines puts them at more risk for side effects once you do start to get caught up!

“…in the second year of life, delay of the first MMR vaccine until 16 months of age or older resulted in an IRR for seizures in the 7 to 10 days after vaccination that was 3 times greater than if administration of MMR vaccine occurred on time.”

Hambridge et al on Timely Versus Delayed Early Childhood Vaccination and Seizures

Why would that be?

It’s probably because that’s when kids are most at risk for febrile seizures.

What Are the Benefits of Delaying Vaccines?

Again, there are no real benefits of delaying vaccines, except that your child gets out of one or more shots. Of course, that means your unvaccinated child is left unprotected.

And it is going to mean more shots later, once you do decide to get caught up.

Will it mean a lower risk of autism, ADHD, eczema, peanut allergies, or anything else?

Nope.

“The prevalence of allergic diseases and non-specific infections in children and adolescents was not found to depend on vaccination status.”

Schmitz et al on Vaccination Status and Health in Children and Adolescents Findings of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS)

Unvaccinated kids are not healthier than those who are vaccinated. They are just at higher risk of getting a vaccine-preventable disease.

Why do some folks think that there are benefits to delaying vaccines? Because they have been scared into thinking that vaccines are harmful and that they don’t even work.

“I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we’ll likely see the diseases increase significantly.”

Dr. Bob Sears in The Vaccine Book

Obviously, that put us all at risk. If too many people skip or delay their child’s vaccines, we will see more outbreaks.

Get educated. Vaccines work. Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are necessary.

What to Know About the Risks of Delaying Vaccines

Delaying your child’s vaccines offers no benefits and lots of increased risks, especially an increased risk of getting the diseases that the vaccines protect us against.

More on the Risks of Delaying Vaccines

Don’t Skip Your Baby’s Hepatitis B Shot

Hepatitis B has infected at least 2 billion people in the world, chronically infects more than 350 million people, and kills more than 600,000 people each year.

Fortunately, hepatitis B is now a vaccine-preventable disease.

“Since 1982, a hepatitis B vaccine has been available to prevent hepatitis B virus infection. Today, the vaccine is made using recombinant DNA technology and contains only a portion of the outer protein coat of the virus, called the hepatitis B surface antigen. The vaccine is a very safe and effective immunization against a viral infection that can lead to liver inflammation, cirrhosis and liver cancer. ”

PKIDs on The Importance of the Hepatitis B Vaccine

Although the first hepatitis B vaccines were developed in the early 1980s, it wasn’t until 1991 that it was added to the immunization schedule for all newborns and infants.

This universal program proved to be much more effective than the previous selective program that only vaccinated newborns if they were in certain high risk groups. In fact, acute hepatitis B infections in children and teens have decreased 96 percent since then.

Why Do Babies Still Get Hepatitis B?

Tragically, even with routine use of the hepatitis B vaccine, some babies still get hepatitis B infections.

Why?

Hepatitis B can be prevented.No, it is not because infants and young children are participating in high risk behaviors, like tattooing, body piercing, or IV drug use.

It can happen if a mother has hepatitis B, but doesn’t know it or isn’t managed properly, and her baby misses the preventative doses of HBIG (within 12 hours of birth) and/or first dose of the hepatitis B shot. Or a baby who was exposed to hepatitis B might not complete the three dose hepatitis B vaccine series.

Newborns of mothers with hepatitis B who are highly viremic (they have very high levels of the virus in their blood), which can be detected during viral load testing during the third trimester, might also develop hepatitis B even though they got the proper dosages of HBIG and the hepatitis B vaccine, if they weren’t treated with an oral anti-hepatitis B virus drug, such as lamivudine, telbivudine and tenofovir.

Declining the Birth Dose of the Hepatitis B Shot

If the hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective and can prevent cancer, why do some parents decline their newborn’s birth dose of this shot?

“Over one third of all people who are infected each year with hep B are in the “no risk” category for infection. I’m one of them, and even a year later, I’m trying to put my horrible experience behind me. No one should ever have to suffer through being infected with this virus — it is totally preventable with a series of three shots. “No risk” living is a meaningless term. If you go to dentist, borrow a toothbrush, get your ears pierced, get a manicure, or engage in countless other mundane activities, you could become infected.”

I Was At No Risk for Ever Having Hepatitis B!

These parents who decline the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine are likely influenced by the misinformation that surrounds much of the anti-vaccine movement, including being made to believe that:

  • they don’t need it because you can be tested for hepatitis B – but when relying on testing, some newborns who needed preventative treatment with HBIG and the hepatitis vaccine get missed and are at risk for developing hepatitis B.
  • it is just an STD vaccine, so they don’t need it because only people who use IV drugs or have promiscuous sex are at risk – except that there are plenty of stories of children and adults getting hepatitis B who weren’t at high risk or didn’t know they were at high risk. And although you won’t get hepatitis B through casual contact, there are cases of people getting infected after sharing a toothbrush or razor, and even after getting bitten. Why would your child share a toothbrush with someone that has hepatitis B? They likely wouldn’t, except that many people with chronic hepatitis B who are contagious don’t have any symptoms, so they might not know to be extra careful.
  • it doesn’t work – the hepatitis B works very well and provides long term protection
  • it is dangerous and can cause autism, multiple sclerosis, and SIDS, etc. – the hepatitis B vaccine doesn’t include any toxic ingredients, has been used since 1982, and has been shown to be safe
  • they don’t need it because hepatitis B is not a serious disease – while many adults with hepatitis B can have asymptomatic infections and completely recover, thousands die each year with acute and chronic hepatitis B. Also, younger children have a very high risk of developing chronic hepatitis B infections, which can lead to chronic liver disease, even cancer. Hepatitis B is a very serious disease.

Of course, these are the typical anti-vaccine talking points they use to help them overstate the risks of a vaccine, while downplaying the risks of a natural infection, to scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your children.

Don’t Skip Your Baby’s Hepatitis B Shot

The hepatitis B vaccine is a safe and effective way to protect your baby from this potentially life-threatening disease and there is no good reason to skip it. Just like there is no good reason to skip your baby’s vitamin K shot.

In the United States alone, more than 2 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis B, and each year, up to 40,000 become newly infected and thousands die.

“So what I did on my schedule is, I took a more logical look at hepatitis B, and I realized that babies have no risk of catching this disease, so let’s not do the hep B vaccine while a baby’s young and small and more vulnerable.”

Dr. Bob Sears

It’s not logical to encourage parents to delay a vaccine, tell them there is no risk in delaying the vaccine, and not mention any of the potential risks, especially that kids can sometimes get hepatitis B without engaging in high risk behaviors. From a needle-stick injury in the park to getting bit at daycare by an asymptomatic child whose parents don’t even know that they have hepatitis B, you can’t say that there is no risk.

Of the 40,000 newly infected people with hepatitis B each year, there are thought to be up to 950 infants who develop chronic hepatitis B from an untreated perinatal hepatitis B virus exposure. Even if it is more rare than that, skipping or delaying the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine is an unnecessary risk.

The AAP, CDC, and ACIP all recommend that newborns should get their first dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth.

What to Know Your Baby’s Hepatitis B Shots

The hepatitis B vaccine is a safe and effective way to protect your baby from hepatitis B, a potentially life-threatening disease, and there is no good reason to skip their birth dose.

More About Your Baby’s Hepatitis B Shots

Parents Who Regret Not Vaccinating Their Kids

My uncle got polio just before the vaccine was developed. He was hospitalized for six months, almost didn't survive, and lived with atrophied muscles in one of his legs.
My uncle got polio just before the vaccine was developed. He was hospitalized for six months, almost didn’t survive, and lived with atrophied muscles in one of his legs.

A rather strange anti-vaccine argument you might sometimes hear is that you can’t unvaccinate your kids (even though they push detox plans that say they do exactly that), so go ahead and wait to vaccinate them until you have “done your research” and are sure.

The problem with that argument, like most others that anti-vaccine folks use to justify their decisions to skip or delay vaccines, is that you can wait too long.

“In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”

Benjamin Franklin Autobiography

Tragically, Ben Franklin wasn’t the last parent to regret not vaccinating his child.

More Parents Who Regret Not Vaccinating Their Kids

Roald Dahl, who famously wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is less well known for having a daughter who died of measles. It was just before the measles vaccine came out, so he didn’t regret not vaccinating her, but in urging other parents to protect their children, he did seem to regret that a vaccine wasn’t yet available.

For many other parents, a vaccine was available that could have kept their kids from getting sick.

“In 1989, the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine was relatively new and not yet routine. I was aware of the vaccine’s availability, but, busy mom that I was, I had not yet made the trip to the health department to get the immunization for my two-year-old daughter, Sarah. I will always regret that bit of procrastination and the anguish that it caused.”

Peggy Archer

Some of them have shared their personal stories, including the parents of:

  • Abby Peterson‘s “pediatrician steered her away from vaccinating her daughter” against chickenpox and her mother, Duffy Peterson, now says that “she wishes she had questioned the doctor’s recommendations more forcefully.” Abby died of a chicken pox infection.
  • Emily Lastinger who was unvaccinated and died of flu.
  • After all seven of her unvaccinated kids caught whooping cough, this parent regretted not having them vaccinated.
  • Claire Noelle Bakke who got pertussis when she was five weeks old
  • Scarlet Anne Taylor who died of the flu during the 2014-15 flu season
  • this unvaccinated three year old who spent six days in the hospital (part of it in a slight coma, during which they weren’t sure he would survive) with Haemophilus influenzae type b epiglottitis
  • Abigail who was unvaccinated and died of invasive pneumococcal disease
  • these two unvaccinated kids who developed severe dehydration from rotavirus infections
  • Sarah who was unvaccinated and developed a croupy cough when she was two-years-old and ended up on a ventilator with Haemophilus influenzae type b epiglottitis
  • Ashley who died from the flu and had never gotten a flu shot
  • Evan who died of a vaccine-preventable disease because his mom was not told about the vaccine that could have prevented it

There is another group of parents who have regrets about vaccines. Those parents whose kids can’t be vaccinated (too young to be vaccinated, have cancer, or have another medical exemption, etc.) are put at risk and exposed to vaccine-preventable diseases by intentionally unvaccinated kids. These parents typically regret that those around them don’t get vaccinated and protected.

Your decision to get educated and vaccinate your family shouldn’t be based on fear or concerns of regret if you delay or skip any vaccines, but these types of personal stories are important to review, especially if you also hear, watch, or read any stories about vaccine injuries.

What To Know About Regretting Not Vaccinating Your Kids

Delaying or skipping one or more vaccines isn’t safer or healthier, it just puts your child at increased of catching the vaccine-preventable diseases the vaccines protect you against and might lead to feelings of regret if you wait too long.

More On Parents Who Regret Not Vaccinating Their Kids

Who Is at Risk If You Don’t Vaccinate Your Kids?

Passive immunity doesn't last until 12 months, when infants get their first dose of the MMR vaccine, so they are at risk for disease.
Passive immunity doesn’t last until 12 months, when infants get their first dose of the MMR vaccine, so they are at risk for disease. Photo by Jamie Beverly (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Whenever there is a discussion about folks who intentionally choose to not vaccinate themselves or their kids, one of their arguments invariably is ‘why are you so worried if you and your kids are vaccinated?”

Here is an example:

“My argument is simple. If you are vaccinated, you should not have to fear an outbreak of any preventable disease. That’s what the vaccine is supposed to prevent, right? Therefore, why should anyone butt into someone else’s business and tell them they should vaccinate? If one and one’s dependents are vaccinated, why should they have to worry about my personal decision to not vaccinate?”

I personally don’t believe in vaccines

As most people understand, the argument is far from simple.

Who Is at Risk If You Don’t Vaccinate Your Kids?

There are many people who are at risk from those who are unvaccinated, including those who:

  • are too young to be vaccinated or fully vaccinated – remember, with the latest immunization schedule, kids don’t typically get their first MMR until age 12 months and their second until they are 4 to 6 years old
  • can’t be fully vaccinated and have a true medical exemption – this includes children and adults with some immune system problems, vaccine allergies, or other contraindications to getting one or more vaccines
  • were vaccinated, but later developed an immune system problem and their immunity has worn off – might include children with cancer, AIDS, those receiving immunosuppressive therapy after a transplant, or a condition that requires immunosuppressive doses of steroids, etc.
  • were vaccinated, but their vaccine didn’t work or has begun to wear off (waning immunity) – vaccines work well, but no vaccine is 100% effective

These are the children and adults that can be, and should be, protected by herd immunity. At least they can be when most folks are vaccinated.

“We want to create a ‘protective cocoon’ of immunized persons surrounding patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases so that they have less chance of being exposed to a potentially serious infection like influenza.”

Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation

So while some folks who are against vaccines try to scare others about shedding, those who take care of kids with immune system problems and their families go out of the way to get everyone around them vaccinated so their kids aren’t at risk of getting a vaccine-preventable disease!

“…the increased risk of disease in the pediatric population, in part because of increasing rates of vaccine refusal and in some circumstances more rapid loss of immunity, increases potential exposure of immunodeficient children.”

Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation

Tragically, not everyone has gotten the message, and we continue to see and hear about kids who are too young to be vaccinated or who couldn’t be vaccinated getting exposed to others who got sick simply because they simply chose to not get vaccinated.

What to Know About Risks from the Unvaccinated

Intentionally unvaccinated children and adults put others at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases.

More Information on Risks from the Unvaccinated

Vaccines and Seizures

A newborn baby getting an EEG.
A newborn baby getting an EEG.

Can vaccines cause seizures?

Unfortunately, they sometimes can.

Vaccines and Febrile Seizures

The CDC reports that “There is a small increased risk for febrile seizures after MMR and MMRV vaccines.”

We also know that:

  • there is a small increased risk for febrile seizures when the influenza vaccine is given at the same time as either the Prevnar13 vaccine or the DTaP vaccine, although “the risk of febrile seizure with any combination of these vaccines is small and CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) does not recommend getting any of these vaccines on separate days.”
  • there is a small increased risk for febrile seizures if the combined MMR and chicken pox vaccine (ProQuad) is given to infants between the ages of 12 to 23 months vs their getting the shots separately.

But remember that febrile seizures, while scary for parents and other caregivers, are rarely dangerous.

It is also important to note that while febrile seizures are common, they are not commonly triggered by vaccines. A 2016 report in Pediatrics, “Vaccines and Febrile Seizures: Quantifying the Risk,” states that “The risk is 1 febrile seizure per pediatric practice every 5 to 10 years.”

Not surprisingly though, vaccines can likely prevent many febrile seizures, as chicken pox, flu, Hib, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumococcal infections and other vaccine-preventable diseases often cause fever and can trigger febrile seizures themselves.

Also, a study recently found that children who got sick with pertussis could be at increased risk for developing epilepsy, or recurrent seizures. That’s just another good reason to get vaccinated and protected against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Vaccines and Other Types of Seizures

While vaccines can sometimes trigger febrile seizures, they do not typically cause other types of seizures.

It was once thought that seizures were a common side effect of the DPT vaccine, but many studies have found that to not be true and seizures following DPT was even removed as a table injury from the NVICP. In fact, many of these children were instead found to have Dravet syndrome, which put them at increased risk for febrile seizures.

Long-term non-febrile seizures are still listed as side effects for the DTaP and MMR vaccine, but they “are so rare it is hard to tell if they are caused by the vaccine.”

A 2010 study in Pediatrics, “Lack of Association Between Acellular Pertussis Vaccine and Seizures in Early Childhood,” did not find any “increased risk for seizures after
DTaP vaccination among children who were aged 6 weeks to 23 months.”

Do report any reaction to VAERS if you think it was caused by a vaccine though.

Seizures After Getting Vaccines

If vaccines don’t usually cause seizures, then how do you explain a healthy infant developing seizures a few days, weeks, or months after getting his vaccines?

We’re always looking for reasons why something happened. The example I use is from my wife, who is a pediatrician. She was about to vaccinate a four-month-old baby, and while she was drawing the vaccine from the syringe, the baby had a seizure — and went onto have a permanent seizure disorder. Now, my wife hadn’t given the vaccine yet. But if she had given that vaccine five minutes earlier, there would have been no amount of statistical data in the world that would have convinced that mother that the vaccine hadn’t caused the baby’s seizure. You can do studies that show no increased risk with vaccines and seizure disorders, but that mother might still say “well, that’s true for the population but it’s not true for my child.”

Temporal associations are powerful, and they’re hard to defeat with statistics or studies.

Paul Offit, MD interview for The Thinking Persons Guide to Autism

There are many seizure disorders that begin in infancy.

Some even start in the newborn period, before a baby is a month old.

They are not triggered by vaccines though.

They include:

  • Infantile Spasms (first described in 1841) – typically begin when infants are about 4 months old, just when they get their second set of vaccines, which weren’t available when Dr. West described his own son’s repeated spasms
  • Benign Familial Neonatal Seizures – often genetic, seizures may begin on a baby’s third day of life
  • Benign Neonatal Convulsions – begin on the fifth day of life – the “fifth day fits,” and the seizures stop in about a month

If your child got her first hepatitis B vaccine when she was five days old and began having seizures, would you accept a diagnosis of Benign Neonatal Convulsions or would you blame the shot?

Would you remember the saying about correlation and causation?

For More Information on Vaccines and Seizures: