Fear stops some parents vaccinating their children

May 4 2005

A new study has found that the majority of parents who choose not to vaccinate their children do so out of fear that the vaccine will cause more harm than the disease it prevents.

Dr. Daniel A. Salmon of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland and his colleagues, in an attempt to understand why some parents choose not to vaccinate their children, reviewed surveys from 2435 parents about their vaccination choices. Two hundred and seventy-seven children had received a non-medical exemption from some type of vaccination and the researchers found that almost 7 out of 10 parents who requested non-medical exemptions said they did so out of concern that the vaccine may cause harm.

Salmon says vaccine safety was really the biggest issue.

Parents of exempt children were more likely to say they had little faith in the vaccine's safety and efficacy, but were unconcerned about their children's risk of vaccine-preventable diseases and tended to have less faith in vaccine information provided by the government, medical sources and public health officials.

Previous reports that linked the MMR vaccine to autism were responsible for much of that concern despite recent research overwhelmingly proving that they are unconnected.

Salmon says the vaccines are "extremely safe and effective," and parents who do not vaccinate their children are leaving them, and other children, vulnerable to deadly diseases.

He and his colleagues say unvaccinated children have a 35-fold higher risk of measles. Many parents in England and Scotland have chosen not to vaccinate their children against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), causing outbreaks of these life-threatening illnesses.

Salmon recommends that public health officials focus their efforts on educating parents about the safety of vaccines, and the dangers of the diseases they prevent.

He says some parents that have concerns must be re-assured that vaccines are extremely safe and effective.

A recent survey suggested a growing number of U.S. parents are beginning to question either the need for vaccines for their children, or the need to follow the recommended schedule of multiple shots between the ages of 3 months and 3 years.

The report is published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, May, 2005.