August is Immunization Awareness Month

BY JAMES S. BURKHARDT, D.O.

             The ice and snow of winter are long gone and so is the prolonged rainy spring.  We are firmly in the middle of summer so we can complain about the heat.  Or is it the humidity?

            August is also National Immunization Awareness Month.  August is the perfect time to remind family, friends, co-workers, and those in the community to catch up on their vaccinations.  Parents are enrolling their children in school, students are entering college, and healthcare workers are preparing for the upcoming flu season. 

            Immunization is one of the most significant public healthy achievements of the 20th century.  Vaccines have eradicated smallpox, eliminated wild poliovirus in the United States, and significantly reduced the number of cases of measles, diphtheria, rubella, pertussis and other diseases.  But despite these efforts, people in the U.S. still die from these and other vaccine-preventable diseases. 

            Vaccines offer safe and effective protection from infectious diseases.  By staying up-to-date on the recommended vaccines, individuals can protect themselves, their families and friends and their communities from serious, life-threatening infections. 

            Vaccines are not perfect; but, quite frankly, I can not think of a drug that is without potential side effects.  You must weigh the risks and benefits.  Vaccines have proven time and again to be extremely safe and beneficial to society and individuals.

            Here in Miami County our childhood immunization rates have declined. According to Donna Youtz, RN, BSN, who is the Immunization Action Plan Coordinator for the Miami County Health District, there are several reasons for this.  There is a significant amount of anti vaccine rhetoric in the media (especially from celebrities) that gains attention.  “This has caused parents to decline or delay getting their kids immunized on the appropriate schedule.” 

            In areas around the country, there are measles and whooping cough outbreaks almost “certainly due to decreased immunization rates in those areas,” continued Mrs. Youtz. 

            Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people.  And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns.  Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenza type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage.  Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans – now regarded as a third world problem – were a first world reality. 

            Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines.  If your newborn gets pertussis, for example, there is a 1 percent chance that the baby will die of pulmonary hypertension or other complications.  The risk of dying from the pertussis  vaccine, by contrast, is practically nonexistent – in fact, no study has linked DTaP (the three-in-one immunization that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) to death in children.  Nobody in the pro-vaccine camp asserts that vaccines are risk-free, but the risks are minute in comparison to the alternative.

            Still, despite peer-reviewed evidence, many parents ignore the math and agonize about whether to vaccinate.  Why? For starters, the human brain has a natural tendency to pattern-match – to ignore the old dictum “correlation does not imply causation” and stubbornly persist in associating proximate phenomena.  If two things coexist, the brain often tells us, they must be related.  Some parents of autistic children noticed that their child’s condition began to appear shortly after a vaccination.  The conclusion:  “The vaccine must have caused the autism.”  Sounds reasonable, even though, as many scientists hove noted, it has long been known that autism and other neurological impairments often become evident at or around the age of 18 to 24 months, which just happens to be the same time children receive multiple vaccinations.  Correlations, perhaps.  But not causation, as studies have shown. 

            There has never been a demonstrated association between vaccines and autism.  NEVER.

            The most recent evidence suggests that autism may represent a genetic variation. 

            It is important to your child’s health to receive the appropriate vaccinations at the correct intervals.

            Because children are particularly vulnerable to infection, most vaccines are given during the first five to six years of life.  Other immunizations are recommended during adolescent or adult years and, for certain vaccines, booster immunizations are recommended throughout life.  Vaccines against certain diseases that may be encountered when traveling outside of the U.S. are recommended for travelers to specific regions of the world. 

            For more information on any vaccine you may contact Donna Youtz, RN, BSN at the Miami County Healthy District @ 440-5420.  Immunizations are given at the Miami County Health District every Tuesday from 8-11 AM and 1-3 PM and every Thursday from 8-11 AM.  In August, clinics will be August 4th and 18th from 4-6:30 PM.  The Miami Country Healthy District is located at 510 W Water Street in Troy.