Sunday conversation ... childhood vaccinations

By Jeff Raymond

Published: June 8, 2008

Earlier this year, two Atlanta parents won concessions from the federal Vaccination Injury Compensation Court, which said a heavy dose of vaccines the family's 9-year-old daughter received when she was 18 months old possibly caused or exacerbated her autism. The concessions stoked the debate about whether a once-common vaccine preservative — thimerosal — can cause autism. State Epidemiologist Dr. Kristy Bradley and Don Blose, immunization service chief for the state Health Department, spoke to The Oklahoman about childhood vaccinations.

Q: Are public health stakes as high for currently recommended immunizations as they have been in the past?

Bradley: Yes, even though we've made tremendous strides in declining vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States, there are still a lot of vaccine-preventable diseases that are circulating in our country such as whooping cough, influenza and sometimes measles. Also, we are living in a very global society now, so disease can be just a plane ride away.

Q: It seems as though a growing number of parents are seeking fewer immunizations for their children or foregoing immunizations altogether. How do public health authorities respond to this trend?

Blose: It's a tragedy when we allow fear to govern our circumstances. One of the products of fear is just misinformation. You don't have to look very far to see misinformation about immunizations. We would definitely urge parents to be informed and then that will take away a lot of this issue. To not vaccinate your child is simply taking a different risk.

Q: To what degree should parents be concerned with thimerosal currently in immunizations or in previously administered immunizations?

Bradley: The thimerosal preservative has been in the process of being fairly rapidly phased out of vaccines since 2003, so currently we only have just a few — primarily the multidose influenza vaccines — that still contain thimerosal. There have been some parents and some groups of persons who are concerned about a potential association with thimerosal in vaccines and the development of autism. ... We in the public health community feel very, very confident that there's no association, but the perception still persists.

Q: What are the greatest immunization-related challenges that public health authorities face?

Blose: We have vaccines now for adolescents, more vaccines for adults. When you become 13 or so, you're a lot less likely to want to go to the doctor's office unless you're desperately sick. We need to find ways to increase access to clinics for this particular population. Other challenges I think: Improving our population that's infected from flu every year.

Q: What vaccines do you think

the future will bring?

Bradley: That's an exciting frontier. Not only the new types of vaccines that might be in development, in the pipleline, but also improving the vaccine technology that we currently have so that there will be vaccines that will be more effective, safer and with fewer of those little, minor side effects that sometimes result.

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