There is no medical evidence that chronic medical illnesses or developmental disorders are caused by vaccines.
As a pediatrician, I am frequently asked about vaccines. It is reasonable for parents to ask questions about any medical recommendations for their children, as it’s a parent’s job to keep children safe.
I think the first thing parents need to know is how vaccines work. How do they give immunity? We know that when a person recovers from an illness like chicken pox, polio, or whooping cough, they will not get sick with that same illness again. The human immune system learns to recognize the viruses or bacteria that cause illnesses. If challenged again in the future by the same germ the body can mount a protective response. The problem is that sometimes illnesses are fatal or debilitating. So, over the last 250 years, medical science has worked to prevent disease. Vaccines are either inactivated viruses or bacteria or partial components of viruses or bacteria that can be recognized by the human immune system so that the body can mount a protective response to those diseases. The purpose of vaccines is protection without illness. A concern I sometimes hear from parents is that vaccines in some way may weaken a child’s immune system. But, if we look at the science behind how vaccines work, vaccines work to strengthen the immune system.
Another concern parents have is the side effects of vaccines. Common side effects are fever and muscle soreness. There is no medical evidence that chronic medical illnesses or developmental disorders are caused by vaccines. There have been theories that vaccines cause other medical problems. When these theories are tested, it has been proven that vaccines do not cause autoimmune disorders, allergies, or developmental disorders.
I’m often asked why we need to vaccinate children. The assumption is that many diseases have been eradicated and vaccines are no longer necessary. Unfortunately, this is not true. The first vaccine ever developed was for smallpox. Smallpox has been eradicated and we no longer vaccinate for smallpox. But polio, a virus that causes death and paralysis, is still active in underdeveloped parts of the world. In this country, many families choose not to vaccinate even though diseases like pertussis, chicken pox, measles, Hemophilus-B meningitis, pneumococcal pneumonia, meningitis, and hepatitis still occur.
The newest question about vaccines is the COVID-19 vaccine. The technology used to make the vaccine has been researched for decades. Before the vaccine was released it was tested extensively on thousands and thousands of subjects. In simple terms, the mechanism for this vaccine is that a genetic message is manufactured in the laboratory. This message is injected into the muscle of a person and then the human body makes a protein that is found in the COVID-19 virus. This is enough for the immune system to mount an immune response to the virus. The message, or mRNA, is destroyed by the body and does not replicate. There is no effect on the RNA, DNA, or any part of the genetic code of the vaccinated person. Studies show that vaccination is as protective as having the actual virus. The COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any inactivated viruses or bacteria. Like influenza, neither infection nor vaccination confers long-term immunity. That is why booster doses are needed.
As we learn more about the COVID-19 virus we learn that children, as well as adults, can be infected. While some are asymptomatic or mildly ill others are seriously ill and require hospitalization. Some children and teens can have ongoing problems after infection with COVID-19. The vaccine prevents hospitalization and long-term effects of COVID-19 and prevents its spread to others.
In the past 24 years, I have frequently been asked by parents if I would vaccinate my own children. My answer is yes. After working with children both in-patient and out-patient and seeing the effects of vaccine-preventable diseases, I made sure my own children were fully vaccinated. And yes, though all my children are now in their twenties, they also received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Need to know what your children's vaccine schedule should be? Click here to view a childhood vaccine schedule.
