News
Baby's Shots
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Published: May 11, 2008
Updated: 05/10/2008 06:35 pm
North Carolina has the second-best record for immunizing its babies against childhood diseases, but that is not good enough. Almost one-fifth of the state's youngest residents still do not get the shots required to protect them from childhood diseases, according to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is no knock against the state's public-health efforts. North Carolina has an aggressive program to vaccinate children. We're doing a lot better than 48 other states.
The challenge rests, instead, with parents. It is they who must be more vigilant.
Getting all of the necessary shots for a child between the ages of 19 months and 35 months is not easy. There are many vaccinations, and, for maximum effectiveness, they must be taken on schedule. This can mean inconvenient visits to the well-child clinic.
It is obvious, therefore, that some parents are either skipping some of the shots or delaying them to a time that is more convenient.
The American Journal of Preventive Medicine recently laid a big part of the blame for lower-than-acceptable vaccination rates on the complexity of the schedule. Dozens of shots are needed for 13 diseases that the CDC tracks. But the effort is worth it.
Give North Carolinians credit, to some degree, for complying at an 81 percent rate. But when the parents of the other 19 percent allow themselves to get off schedule or miss shots altogether, they are putting their child's health at risk. The number of measles cases in the United States hit a five-year high last year. Children also run the risk of contracting other preventable diseases, such as mumps, whooping cough and polio. The number of whooping-cough cases in North Carolina doubled from 2005 to 2006.
We can prevent these diseases from attacking our children if we just get them vaccinated. And when children are vaccinated, it reduces the likelihood that they will pass the disease to other children, to adolescents and to adults.
State taxpayers and health workers are doing their part to get the vaccination rate up. State law requires that children be current on their inoculations when they enter a day-care center or school. And the state pays for the vaccines. Some doctors even provide the shots without charge.
Nobody likes getting shots. Even the best needles still sting a little. But it makes all the sense for parents to get their children -- and themselves, for that matter -- vaccinated when it is recommended by doctors.
Considering how awful measles, whooping cough or the flu can be, a slight sting from a needle, and a bit of inconvenience in meeting an appointment are minor problems indeed.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( JohnG ) on May 12, 2008 at 8:27 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Vaccination has turned into quite the little public-private partnership. This has been very rewarding to doctors and drug companies. The thing is vaccines aren't all that effective for the individual, as proved by the need to have everyone immunized. Furthermore there has never been a requirement that drug companies show the long term health consequences of particular vaccines or the most importantly the ridiculous schedule that has babies vaccinated from the time they are born. But dont worry, the state always has your interest at heart.
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