Pediatrician slams vaccine book

A report published Monday in the journal Pediatrics charges the author of a popular book for parents on childhood vaccines with stoking fears about vaccine safety and misrepresenting the science behind the nation's immunization policy. "The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child" was published last year by Dr. Robert Sears, son of the well-known Capistrano Beach pediatrician and author William Sears.

In a scathing critique not often seen in a pediatric journal, vaccine expert Paul A. Offit and coauthor Charlotte A. Moser say the book misrepresents science; supports delaying, withholding or spacing out vaccines; endorses the concept of natural immunity through such methods as chickenpox parties; does not distinguish between solid science and poorly conducted studies; and commits several errors of fact. "In an effort to protect children from harm, Sears' book will likely put more in harm's way," Offit and Moser write.

"He [Sears] believes that parents' fears should be indulged by offering alternative schedules, not countered by scientific studies, and he fails to explain that good science is the only way to determine whether a vaccine causes a particular adverse event. Instead, Sears alludes to evidence on both sides of any issue, failing to distinguish studies on the basis of their quality, internal consistency, or reproducibility and failing to distinguish those that are accepted by the scientific community from those that are not."

Sears issued a response in which he expresses surprise at the vitriol and says his position on childhood vaccination does not differ significantly from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Sears says he erred in the book by not distinguishing between good vaccine studies and poor ones but calls the Pediatrics paper "riddled with selective, misleading, and inaccurate quotes."

The biggest point of contention between the two papers, which can be found on their respective websites, Pediatrics and TheVaccineBook, is whether it's reasonable for parents who are worried about their individual child's safety to postpone or skip some vaccines. Offit and Moser call this strategy an invitation to more community outbreaks of measles, pertussis and mumps. But Sears defends the idea.

"Where my alternative schedule comes into play is for those parents who are still unsure about vaccines but they do want to fully vaccinate. I offer them an optional schedule that gets their child full vaccinated, but at a slower pace. It doesn't delay any of the most important shots."

Some of the arguments between the two papers are trivial, but the fundamental disagreement is not. The nation's public health policy depends on widespread support for childhood vaccination. However, a growing number of parents are apparently uncomfortable with having their children receive so many vaccines in a short amount of time. Their reticence to adhere to the recommended schedule may launch a return to the days when children were left immobile from polio or brain-damaged or dead from meningitis. Hopefully, the value of the nation's childhood vaccine program will come into full focus for everyone before then.

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[David M.]

Where is the mention that Dr. Paul Offit owns the patent on a vaccine and has made millions from his vaccine's. How could anyone consider him objective on the issue.
And how about mentioning that Dr. Bernadette Healy former head of the NIH has questioned experts who dismiss any link between vaccines and autism. Her quote:

"I think public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as 'irrational,' without sufficient studies of causation... without studying the population that got sick," Dr. Healy said. "I have not seen major studies that focus on 300 kids who got autistic symptoms within a period of a few weeks of the vaccines."

[AngelMommy]

Yes, Paul Offit is also known as Dr. Proffit (google it) because he owns part of the patent for the rotavirus vaccine (which BTW, is causing intestinal blockage in infants again, just as the other one did taken off the market) and is a spokesperson for MERCK. Follow the money.
Dr. Sears comes from a well renowned family of pediatric physicians and his brother Dr. Jim Sears is on the TV show the doctors. Both are the sons of Dr. William Sears, who has wrote more than 30 parenting books.
It seems to me, Dr. Sears (and the entire family of Sears) cares more about the health and safety of our children. Dr. Offit has a financial stake in what he says and I'm sure it dictates what he supports and doesn't support. Again, follow the money.

[John House]

When are you anti-vax people (like David M) going to learn that vaccines do not cause autism???

Vaccines almost eradicated ALL of those nasty diseases your grandparents were susceptible to in their youths. My aunt suffered from polio because there was no vaccine when she was born.

How about you stupid anti-vax people think about what ELSE we're putting into our bodies in this 2008 (soon to be 2009) year. The preservatives in food? The additives in food? Think about the many years your mothers and fathers have been eating fake, unnatural crap (including soda) and then tell us why kids/teens today behave like they do. This is simple science, not rocket science. You give a kid a vaccine in 1960 and it grows up eating worse and worse quality food and then gives birth in 1990 to something whose genes have been tainted with plastics and other chemicals in their mothers' food--foods they didn't have in the 20's or 30's. What your mommy eats affects how you're born. Think about it.

And THEN come back and tell us that it's the vaccines that cause your stupid kid to scream and kick you when you don't hand over the Ho-Hos.

[Jme]

The NIH and CDC are funded by so much big pharma $$ and so are so many "experts" that it is hard to tell what the truth actually is. I'm a nurse practitioner and am not vaccinating my children until they are older and their immune systems can better tolerate the assault that multiple injections of various things (and additives) throw at them. I don't believe that we can fully trust the government entities that push vaccines since many of the very studies that these agencies use to support their position have been in part or fully funded by the vaccine manufacturers. Ridiculous!

[Susan]

I'd like to see some discussion and analysis of data on whether fully breastfed babies are naturally immunized and if waiting to vaccinate until they have weaned is just as effective as vaccinating when they've barely been born. I wondered about this when I was a young breastfeeding mother, and never got satisfactory answers from my doctors. They more or less stated, "We've got your attention now, and want to make sure children get vacinated, so this is why we do it so early." To an intelligent, dedicated parent, who did believe vaccination to be overall a good thing, but worried about tiny developing immune systems, already protected by my immunities, being overwhelmed by-- whatever was in those vaccinations; who knew at the time?-- this was not an adequate, or scientifically supportable, answer.

[Liz]

One:

Can't you anti-vaccination people get the facts correct? All the facts, but let us start with Dr. Offit and his alleged "conflict of interest".

Yes, Dr. Offit worked for years to create a safe and effective vaccine against a potentially fatal disease caused by rotavirus, RotaTeq. Dr. Offit and his co-inventors assigned the rights for RotaTeq to two institutions that had sponsored his research. Those institutions then sold future rights to another group.

In other words, Dr. Offit has made all the money he's ever going to make from Rotateq, one single vaccine.

How then is it a "conflict of interest" for Dr. Offit to write about the current ENTIRE vaccine schedule?

Two:
AngelMommy: Take your own advice and follow the money. Why do you trust the Sears family, a group of very slick marketers? Go look at their website --full of ads for products that give the Sears family profits.

I have read both Dr. Sears' vaccine book and Dr. Offit's article in Pediatrics.

Offit is critical of Sears in the following specific areas:

Sears makes the false claim that "Doctors Do Not Understand Vaccines "
Sears promotes the idea that "Public Health Agencies and Pharmaceutical Companies Are Not Trustworthy"
Sears makes the case that vaccines should cease to be mandatory for participating in such public areas as schools.
Sears makes the false and dangerous claim that "Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Are Not That Bad"
Sears advises parents who do not vaccinate to conceal their chidren's vaccine status from neighbors.
Sears makes the false and unscientific claim that "Natural Infection Is Better Than Vaccination"
Sears spreads the the entirely unscientific and false claim that vaccinations increase chronic diseases such as diabetes.
Sears misrepresents the degree to which vaccines are tested for safety and efficacy.
Sears spreads the false, illogical notion that some vaccines (such as polio) are given not for the protection of the individual, but for for the population.

What Offit doesn't comment on is Sears' smug assumption that parents can and should afford the increased number of doctor visits the "Sears vaccine schedule" requires.

I am pleased that Pediatrics has published the Offit paper.

[Scientista]

Wow, Some people think that just because they have children, they have a magical newfound understanding of medicine and science. Get over yourselves. You don't. Say what you will about Offit, but Sears is just as much a profiteer shilling books and fear.

Unless you hermetically seal your children, your babies are introduces to far more potential pathogens in a single day than the whole vaccine schedule. There is NOTHING to support the idea of spreading out vaccines as opposed to just taking them in a few shots in a shorter span of time. The way the immune system trains is more like learning and not like weight lifting. While you have to work your way up with weights and stop when you're fatigued, you don't have to stop reading because your brain wears down.

Sears is not exactly a fraud in my opinion, but he's pretty misguided, as are his followers. You're the sheeple.

[W. C. Dressler, M.D.]

I vividly remember the horrible days of the early fifties as a seven year old in my small WV town when a child on every other block or so contracted polio, and many were sent to Marmet, WV, for treatment in an iron lung just to breathe. My mother volunteered for the March of Dimes, and there was jubilation when Dr. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine. Now many parents are refusing any vaccines for not only polio, but tetanus, pertussis, and diptheria, etc. Tragically, many innocent children will become crippled or die from their parents well-intentioned reluctance to vaccinate.

[Viewpoint]

Methinks that we have a pharma schill in our midst.

Why? Check out the postings of John House, Scientista and Liz ... could this be the work of a single person using multiple aliases to convince us that so many people are in favor of vaccines when, indeed, there are only a few?

Why do I suggest this is possible? Because this is what I once did - as a former spokesperson for a large medical company, I was responsible for framing safety debates, planting stories in influential journals and creating doubt among 'non-believers' all in service of getting my employer's agenda approved.

My advice - judge by results, and trust your gut. Thank you for reading.

[digger]

john house you wrote This is simple science, not rocket science.

It's strange you wrote all most what this CDC officer wrote ;email from a CDC
officer saying "this was not rocket science this was 9th grade math how could this have happened" he was referring to the adding up the cumulative doses of mercury also the big change started in the late 80's early 90's when they doubled the amount of thimerosal then tripled it, by adding more shots to the schedule.... John for the sake of the children please read on!

CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding has delivered a potentially explosive report to the powerful House Appropriations Committee, in which she admits to a startling string of errors in the design and methods used in the CDC's landmark 2003 study that found no link between mercury in vaccines and autism, ADHD, speech delay or tics.Gerberding was responding to a highly critical 2006 report from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which concluded that the CDC's flagship thimerosal safety study was riddled with "several areas of weaknesses" that combined to "reduce the usefulness" of the study ."
."I hope everyone will read it, including the recommendations to make the VSD better, and the CDC's agreement with all of the suggestions.As questionable as the US thimerosal study was, "it was an improvement on other studies, including the two in Denmark, both of which had serious weaknesses in their designs," Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Professor of Public Health at UC Davis Medical School and Chair of the NIEHS panel, told reporter Dan Olmsted at UPI.That leaves very little for the CDC to go on in terms of proving that
thimerosal and autism are not associated in any way
"CDC concurs," Dr. Gerberding wrote in an undated mea culpa to Congress, (provided to me through a Capital Hill staffer) adding that her agency "does not plan to use" the database in question, the Vaccine Safety Datalink, (VSD) for any future "ecological studies" of autism.In fact, Gerberding's report said, any continued use of the VSD for similar ecological studies of vaccines and autism "would be uninformative and potentially misleading.

The head of the CDC is saying that its most powerful and convincing piece of exonerating evidence for thimerosal is, in effect, "useless

That was in an article from David Kirby

This is the CDC Dir. admitting that they have no science left to refute the autism thimerosal connection, but give them some more time an they will produce good quality studies. I believe when they were first warned the autism rate was 1 in 10,000 they chose to ignore the warning and every piece of research that they done in their words was well designed robust studies. We now find out at the least The Dir. of the CDC was incompatant at the worse the Dir. was involved in a criminal cover up. But I believe we have given them long enough time to investigate themselves I'm afraid if we give them anymore time we won't have any children left. For the current rate is 1 in 82 children in MN and in the somali community it is 1 in 28 children. The somali mothers are saying the same thing as the American mothers we vaccinated and we lost our normal child also they are saying something that we can't say as Americans "there is no autism in Somalia we call it, an American disease" Now either the CDC was stupid, or they knew that the VSD studies were fatally flawed. Either way that is incompetence and it has no place! in vaccine safety. These are the people we as Americans trust to tell us the truth. It seems, their not capable of the truth
That is reflected in the Emails obtained through the Freedom of information act ( FOIA ) in one Email the CDC official says "whats in the vaccines how could the FDA approve a preservative with out knowing how much mercury it contained" ( then something really reassuring knowing that they are in control in case of a biological attack ) he then said "what else is lurking that we know nothing about" another email from a CDC person saying "this was not rocket science this was 9th grade math how could this have happened" he was referring to the adding up the cumulative doses of mercury. Also the big change started in the late 80's early 90's when they doubled the amount of thimerosal then tripled it, by adding more shots to the schedule . Which caused a scientist from Merck to send a letter to the president of Merck this was not just any scientist It was the man that grandfathered their children's vacc. program
He told Merck that six-month-old babies who received their vaccines on schedule would receive a mercury dose 87 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency deemed safe. Dr. Hilleman said “When viewed in this way, the mercury load appears rather large”. He wrote this in a 1991 memo to Merck officials. He was saying it is not daily allowance it’s bolus doses all at once (”When viewed in this way, the mercury load appears rather large”) It seems he was trying to do the right thing before he died.
The official he told was Gordon Douglas, MD, the president of vaccine manufacturer Merck. So he; Dr. Gordon Douglas ignores Dr. Hilleman’s apparently very Important Warning. And if he had listened, would have spared a lot of children from being vaccine injured. but he did suggest adding more vaccines with mercury. So where is Dr. Gordon Douglas now? He is the Director of Strategic Planning for the Vaccine Research Center at the the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Is it not the CDC and the FDA and AAP that always says that this was very small amounts of mercury and the poison is in the dose. well I guess this professional just called them a liar. This is their small amounts keep in mind 200 ppb is liquid toxic waste in every multi dose vial was 50,000ppb some of the lucky children recieved 9 vacc's in one day at one setting 7 of which contained the mercury these children recieved 32,500 ppb

They got this part right, the poison was in the dose. Dr. Hilleman grandfather for the child vaccine program for Merck.
Quote (”When viewed in this way, the mercury load appears rather large”)

[curt linderman sr]

What is seriously being missed here is that you have the AAP and Dr. Offit which are basically stating that every child should have every vaccine and there should be NO deviation from a schedule that the CDC changes every year anyway. There are side effects to the foods we eat(allergies), OTC medicines (that has just recently been deemed unsafe for children under two) yet vaccines are perfectly safe in the all or nothing, one-size-fits-all recommendations from a bunch of idiots. Dr. healy stated the case well, the government is looking at this issue because they are afraid of what they'll find.

The sheeple are the ones that state ignorantly that vaccines don't cause autism. There are absolutely no long term stdies exonerating vaccines (no matter what offit tells you. The recent CoMed study is sound, reproducable science that clearly shows thru UPPA that autistic children ARE HG++ poisoned. Sheeple are the ones that believe that vaccines have been responsible for the erradication of disease from the country when the statistics clearly show otherwise. It's ultimately about freedom to choose what is best for YOUR child. Believe me when I say that nobody cares about the colateral damage until their children are that colateral damage.

[Bill Sardi]

Vitamin D is going to change pediatricians reliance upon vaccines. Vitamin D builds immunity fast and inexpensively, and offers broad protection against infectious disease, even lowering the need for antibiotics. When families discover vitamin D, the cash-cow for pediatricians will vanish.
Vaccines spread a "little bit" of disease, in hopes antibodies will be produced. The very young and the very old don't produce antibodies very well. Infants rely upon immune factors in breast milk. No study analyzes safety of all the vaccines administered over a short time. In animals, such a tactic has resulted in serious problems. Stop experimentation with kids. Pediatricians are too close to the vaccine industry to provide an unbiased answer for parents on this issue. And, may the public inquire of pediatricians, just what spawned the autism epidemic? So far, no answers from any quarter of modern medicine on this. Why?

[mom2two]

I love the way people comment about things they have no personal knowledge of. Especially you, John House. How insentitive to parents of AUtistic children. You write of things you have no experience with, just like Liz. WHen you have seen your child normal one minute and then totally and forever changed after a vaccine, then comment. This has happened too many times to be a coincidence. There is not a thing in the world wrong with spacing out a vaccine. No medicine fits every adult and no vaccine fits every child at one point in their life.

[Jackie]

Don't miss pediatrician's responses at the bottom of the abstract in Pediatrics. I know I speak for many - Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts - To all those pediatricians and other health care professionals who question and speak out publicly, please know you are very appreciated. We understand what you risk to take back your noble profession, using precaution near children and primum non nocere.

The abstract in Pediatrics:
(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/123/1/e16\4)

Oh... Paul Offit’s own book, out this past September, did not sell as well as planned.

Happy New Year everyone.

[Concerned Parent]

Many scientists and policymakers within government and academia are very concerned about the lack of evidence to support use of the recommended childhood vaccination schedule for all children regardless of family history of autoimmune illness and prior reactions to vaccines in either the vaccinated child or sibling. There are no rigorously conducted studies that examine the effect of the "schedule as a whole" (and all possible combination of vaccines, manufactures and adjuvants) on various health outcomes: Immunogenicity (production of protective antibodies), Reactogenicity (unintended vaccine-associated adverse reactions) and other chronic illnesses potentially related to long-term disturbances of the immune system such as asthma, food allergies and eczema. These are legitimate research questions; several of which are being evaluated for funding by federal agencies. Being concerned about vaccine safety is not equivalent to being anti-vaccine. Please take a look at the article below.

US News and World Report
A Government Call for Vaccine Research
The National Institutes of Health has put out a call for answers
By Bernadine Healy M.D.
Posted December 11, 2008

Vaccine schedules. The one-size-fits-all vaccine schedule has served the public well but has yet to be tested for optimal efficacy and safety. The NIH proposes comparisons of the immunologic and physiologic effects of different combinations of vaccines administered on different schedules. Supporting this need is a 2008 Canadian study that found that delaying the diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus vaccination a few months cut the risk of childhood asthma by 50 percent.

[monkey2222]

When you create vaccines for profit, or sell vaccines for profit you have an agenda- period.
This won't be solved until people WITHOUT agendas come to the table with a solution- the question is Are vaccines safe for everyone- are the schedules safe for everyone?
There are kids that are more susceptible to reactions- and have been put on extended schedules via an MD recommendations.

[Elizabeth Hensley]

They gave the same kind of monkeys they use to test the safety of individual vaccines ALL of them the way they do our children. Results: The monkeys had the same kind of autistic behaviors and painful gut problems many autistic children have. They are overdoing a good thing to the point it has become very bad. The body can't take that many assaults. The immune system goes haywire and starts attacking its own body including the brain and the gut. I belong to several autistic support groups. One thing I see over and over again is children who are already sick or recovering from an illness being given a series of catch up shots because they were behind on their schedule due to the sickness. The children then regress into autism and/or other chronic sicknesses because it is just too much for their immune system to handle all at once. Happened in my own family. Adopted Child FINALLY getting over TB. Given all the shots at once so she can start school. Never EVER the same again. Went from being very cheerful and bright to having serious learning disabilities and emotional problems. This one size fits all vaccination schedule is not reality based science. All people are different. Also every live virus shot contains MSG which is an excitotoxin that can damage the brain. I have melt downs I can no more control than an epileptic can his seizures when I eat MSG and it hides under 30 different names. (Google it). We are injecting that into children? Plus the aluminum they now add to replace the mercury? Plus other additives that don't even need to be there? (Green our vaccines!) And mercury is in almost every flu shot. If someone gets their flu shot each year they will soon have more mercury exposure than the EPA deems safe for a life time of exposure from just the flu shots alone not to mention all the mercury we are exposed to from other sources. Stress causes things to cross the blood-brain barrier that otherwise can not and believe me children are VERY stressed when they are being held down and jabbed with needles. The vaccination fliers that come from the pharmaceutical companies say themselves that the vaccines should not be given to children with immune system problems. That includes allergies folks! So the doctors aren't even following the already established medical procedures to avoid vaccinating children who have a potential for having problems with these immune system assault.! Also the advice to give children Tylenol to cope with the shots is very dangerous. Tylenol interferes with the glutathione enzyme that the body needs to handle heavy metals and other toxins. Plus it blunts the immune system response the shot is supposed to cause. The immune system can't learn to cope with an assault if it is being kept from working properly by a drug designed to stop the fevers and other things the immune system is supposed to be doing. Also there are FDA approves ways to make shots and other needle sticks not hurt and has been for over 20 years. Doctors and nurses aren't even bothering. I think the stress alone of having people who are supposed to protect he child from pain helping to hold a child down so strangers can inflict pain is causing a lot of behavior problems. I KNOW it did with me. I could not be toilet trained for years and it was directly due to my Mother helping strangers hurt me. I had no other way to protest what was being done to me. I never bonded properly with my mother and shots were a BIG factor in that. I am slightly autistic and have severe allergies and other SEVERE immune system problems. I KNEW those shots were permanently damaging me long before I read any books or heard any talk show. But no one listens to a Kid about trying to avoid needles. I even remember the shot that I am pretty sure did it to me. I was arching my back and SCREAMING! I did that for hours! The adults just thought it was cute. It meant I was a fighter! Well I have had to be. Life hasn't been easy due to extremely poor health. :(

[Rowan]

Interestingly, there is a study being conducted by the University of Washington in conjunction with the University of North Carolina with regard to studying the size of infants brains. It would appear that autism is more likely caused by genetic and environmental influences rather than vaccinations. I suspect that what is behind most people who have drawn a correlation between vaccinations and their autistic children is a denial that they may have contributed to the illness of their child through genetics.

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

"UW looking for babies for autism study
The University of Washington is looking for babies to participate in a national autism study that examines changes in infants' brains over time.

Headed by the University of North Carolina, the infant brain imaging study builds on two recent findings about autism: That autistic toddlers have larger brains than non-autistic toddlers, and that the social deficits of autism do not materialize until a child is almost 2.

Researchers in the latest project are looking for 6-month-old infants with an older, autistic sibling. They are also looking for infants with a non-autistic, older sibling. Participants will undergo a magnetic resonance imaging scan of their brain at 6, 12 and 24 months of age.

Families can earn $225 for the entire study. Imaging must be done in Seattle; travel money will be provided. Anyone interested should contact the UW's Autism Center at 800-994-9701 or ddrinfo@u.washington.edu."

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/healthreport/archives/158182.asp

[sc]

I think everyone should be free to refrain from vaccinating their children, with the caveat that they must then remove themselves and their Special Snowflake Progeny from the rest of society.

Yes, that's right: all anti-vax people can go live together in their own special quarantined communities, but they do NOT have the right to force the rest of society at large to assume the risks -- e.g., serious illness, quarantine, lost wages for parents, and the possibility of lasting harm and even death -- of their own ill-informed, ill-reasoned, narcissistic decisions masquerading as enlightened concern and moral superiority.

Also, I have always wondered how many of the anti-vax parents were themselves vaccinated as children in the '60s and '70s? The vast, vast majority of them, I'll wager.

[Kelly R.]

To the people here addressing us anti-vaccination parents......
Let's put this in perspective. The difference is that the pathogens to which you refer -- those are not injected into the bloodstream of a 7 lb. infant. Drinking from a a plastic cup (BPA) or exposure to pesticides (inhalation of mitochondrial-destroying chemicals) is probably something a healthy immune system could handle as did my child until he was given nine vaccines on his first birthday. I grew up in the 50-60s, developed all childhood illnesses (yes, illnesses) because my body took on these bacteria and viruses in the God-given way -- through the muccusol system - not injected into my bloodstream.

And, please, polio was almost eradicated when the vaccine surfaced because of the advent of clean water and food. The MMR vaccine did nothing to wipe out mumps, measles and rubella -- again, clean water and food and, unfortunately because of the scare tactics of vaccine manufacturers, mothers started keeping their children away from sick children, lest they develop the "scourge" of chickenpox -- another harmless childhood illness.

Do you honestly believe that injecting harmful toxins such as ethylmercury, formaldehyde, ether, radiator fluid, aluminum into ones bloodstream is NOT going to manifest as eventual "behavior" in a person. Come on..... all we have to do is look at the thousands of Alzheimers patients -- injected annually with flu vaccines to see the opposite end of this spectrum -- a related behavioral spectrum........ the elderly version of autism.

If the MMR vaccine (or any of the others) actually worked, why are most ongoing current cases of any of these viruses developed among the vaccinated? And, what do you have to fear if my child is not vaccinated? Clearly, your vaccinated child is protected, right?????

[Lynne S]

Thank you to Dr. Sears for writing a book that helps parents individualize their vaccination schedule. With the recent ruling of Hannah Poling's autism being triggered by multiple vaccinations in one office visit, it makes parents want to choose the safest way for their own child. The CDC vaccine schedule does not fit everyone and in fact, can hurt our very delicate individuals. Each case needs to be carefully evaluated as to which vaccinations if any should be given. We need to stop pretending that all children are the same and given the same things. We also need to stop pretending that vaccines are perfect and as safe as can be. There are many adverse reactions to vaccinations. Visit the National Vaccine Information Center and research VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System). Many children suffer from seizures, brain injury, autoimmune disorders, allergic reactions, and more from vaccines. It should ALWAYS be each parents right to decide on whether to vaccine, when, and which vaccines. It is a medical procedure with great risks, just read the possible side effects of the vaccine insert.

[Sylvia]

"Stupid anti-vax people"?

Oh Mr. House, insulting parental concerns is a page right out of Offit's book.

Parents are rightfuly worried about vaccine risks, and these type of insults don't help.

[Teresa Binstock]

Paul Offit is to children's health as numerous physicans were when they endorsed use of tobacco.

[Steve Osterday]

That people are still having this ridiculous discussion is a testament to the strength of ignorance in numbers, and the willingness of the press do promote that ignorance with these inane articles that allow science to be 'balanced' with ignorance!

[Karen]

Just understand, I ask whether there are unvaccinated children in a household, and in a classroom. I then inform the parents that I will hold them responsible if the immune impaired members of my household are exposed to disease as a consequence of their decision. And, I will hold them to it. There is a social contract. Your decision not to vaccinate impacts the ability of those whoo cannot be vaccinated to participate in society. If you want to reject conventional medical advice, you assume the legal risk.