A Pediatrician Talks Vaccines

Last updated on August 4th, 2023 at 07:57 am

Over one hundred cases of measles have been reported in the first month of 2015. At this rate, the United States will have far more measles cases than in many recent years. This is not good.

As a pediatric emergency medicine physician, I am quite passionate about childhood vaccinations. The past few weeks, my Facebook news feed has been covered with anti/pro vaccination stories and blogs. As a mom, I actually understand the hesitation and doubt before having your child injected with vaccines, and that is with over 15 years of pediatric medical training. I understand the hesitation, but luckily as a physician I know the science. And the science clearly shows that vaccines only help, and do not harm. So I hope that this article can help inform parents who are just scared and need reassurance and facts.

I know that parents who do not vaccinate their children do not actually want them to get measles. Nor do they want children with compromised immune systems from things like cancer to be exposed to measles. But parents who choose not to vaccinate their children need to accept these real, terrifying risks. The risk of measles in 2015 is far higher than the feared adverse affects.

I think some parents are terrified of things they hear from prominent media figures about autism and vaccines. They think their child will be protected from measles even without a vaccine as it has been largely eradicated in the United States. The problem is that other countries have not been as successful, and travelers bring illnesses into the US and thus expose unvaccinated and young children. Look at the recent Ebola scare for an example. Unfortunately with the number of cases we are seeing, children truly may be at risk if they are not vaccinated.

Let me tell you what I see as an emergency room physician when parents choose not to vaccinate their children. I see infants and toddler-aged children coming into the emergency room with high fevers, likely from innocent viruses. However, since they are at risk for serious infections that vaccines prevent, we are inclined as physicians to perform a laboratory evaluation to rule out bacterial infections. Nothing breaks my heart more than to have to put children through unnecessary testing and suffering. When a patient comes in with a possible case of measles, I see that we have to scramble to place patients in appropriate rooms so germs are not spread through the air to expose the innocent babies and oncology patients to viruses such as measles. It is a huge deal.

Most of the fears are driven from a study published in the Lancet that claimed a link between vaccines and autism. This is considered one of the top journals in the medical research world. This same journal retracted this study when the author was found to be fabricating medical research. Even without this information, the study was based on small numbers (only 12 patients!). With study numbers this small, you could make any type of inference on what causes autism. Breastfeeding, bottle feeding, sleeping too much, sleeping not enough…you get my point. Pediatricians as a profession felt infuriated, yet vindicated when this article was retracted. There is no link to the MMR vaccine and autism. Period.

So what are the risks from the vaccine? Some children may have a small amount of swelling around the injection site. Some children experience fevers. There is a small risk of febrile seizures from these fevers (about 1/4000), but I can tell you that the risk of seizures is far higher with infections such as measles. The most feared complication of measles is encephalitis (swelling of the brain), and this can cause seizures, permanent neurological impairment, and death.

These illnesses (measles, mumps, rubella and varicella) can also cause severe pneumonias, gastrointestinal illness, and ear infections. Other complications from things such as mumps (included in the MMR vaccine) include inflammation of the reproductive organs (more commonly in men, called orchitis), leading to possible infertility. As if it’s not hard enough to get pregnant, let’s not add more reasons. And this is just for the MMR (sometimes MMRV with varicella) vaccine. I recommend referring to cdc.gov for lists of vaccine schedules and details about the illnesses that these vaccines prevent. I can assure you that speaking with my more senior colleagues, we do not want to be dealing with these illnesses again as a society.

On the flip side of the coin, many parents are concerned about their young infants being exposed to measles, as the MMR vaccine is not recommended until 12-15 months of age (unless traveling to certain areas outside of the country; then it may be given earlier). Most pediatric practices have a set age that they give the vaccine within that range. If your child’s practice gives it on the later end of that range, just talk it over with your child’s pediatrician to see if it can be given earlier.

So talk to your pediatrician about your fears. If you are scared, hesitant, or just want more information, please talk to your pediatrician and voice your concerns. Your child’s doctor can provide you a wealth of information to calm your fears. That’s what we’re here for. We’re on your side, I promise.

Kara Hennelly, MD is a pediatric emergency medicine physician and mom to twin 1 year old boys. Kara trained at Harvard University/Boston Children’s Hospital and now works at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Kara loves being a mom to twins more than anything in the world, and loves being able to give medical advice to moms out there now that she is a mom too!

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