This chapter from the book Vaccines: What You Should Know states concerns about vaccine safety and gives responses by physicians that include evidence from medical studies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States (US). Examples of concerns are:

• Concern: Vaccines don't work.
• Concern: Vaccines aren't necessary.
• Concern: Vaccines are not safe.
• Concern: Infants are too young to get vaccinated.
• Concern: Children get too many shots.
• Concern: Vaccines weaken the immune system.
• Concern: Some vaccines contain other infectious agents that may damage my child.
• Concern: Vaccines cause autism.

A concern with its response from the chapter includes the following:

"Concern: Infants are too young to get vaccinated.

Children are immunized in the first few months of life because several vaccine-preventable diseases infect them when they are very young. For example:

• Pertussis infects about 8,000 children, causing five to ten deaths every year in the United States. Almost all of the cases are in children less than one year of age.
• Children under two years old are 500 times more likely to catch Hib meningitis if someone with a Hib infection is living in the home.
• About 90 percent of newborns whose mothers are infected with hepatitis B will contract hepatitis and go on to develop chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and possibly liver cancer.

For these reasons, it is very important for infants to be fully immunized against certain diseases by the time they are six months old. Fortunately, young infants are surprisingly good at building immunity to viruses and bacteria. About 95 percent of children given DTaP, Hib, and hepatitis B virus vaccines will be fully protected by two years of age."

This information is reprinted from Chapter 15 "Common Concerns about Vaccines," p. 92-115, from the book Vaccines: What You Should Know, third edition, by Paul A. Offit, MD, and Louis M. Bell, MD ©2003. To purchase a copy, click here. Cost of the book is US$14.95; however, the entire chapter is available free of charge online and in PDF format at the links provided below.