CBS news reports pediatricians are seeing more parents are not getting their children vaccinated due to the belief that the illnesses those vaccines fight have been wiped out in the United States.
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According to CBS News, the 2013 survey shows 87 percent of pediatricians with whom they spoke had encountered vaccine refusals.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has urged state governments and pediatricians to take a firmer approach in forcing vaccine-hesitant parents to immunize their children.The policy statement released Monday suggests legislators prohibit nonmedical vaccine exemptions for children entering school and day care, as done by California’s Senate Bill 277, which took effect last month.
The majority of parents who chose to delay vaccines said they did not want to burden their children’s immune systems or subject them to multiple shots.
Explain that vaccines are rigorously tested for safety and effectiveness.
In a separate statement, the AAP says routine childhood vaccinations are integral to the public health infrastructure in the U.S. Most states allow children to be exempt from school-required immunizations; while the AAP supports medical exemptions, it views non-medical exemptions as inappropriate for individual health, public health and ethical reasons.
Doctors also can present tales of tragedy from their own experience, she added.
Pediatricians also should remind parents that vaccination is something of a civic duty.
First, the era of the false notion that “vaccines cause autism” isn’t gone, despite mountains of research proving there is no link between vaccines and autism.
“Vaccination is not just about you and your kid”, she said. It’s about your grandmother.
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The 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak provides another good example pediatricians can cite, McCarthy said.
