VACCINE SAFETY

Matt looks into vaccinations with a variety of guests. Many people have safety concerns, particuarly with lower-importance vaccines like annual flu shots. The issue gets much dicer, and much more dangerous, when it involves choosing to not vaccinate a child against life-threatening diseases.

Matt talks with Dr. Paul Savage, a professor of chemistry at BYU about shot safety. Savage says he considers all vaccines safe, personally. He says modern research is cutting down on the number of times a child needs to be injected to capture the fully battery immunizations they need. He sees no coorolation between vaccine preservatives and autism. Savage says the myth comes from an academic paper that was not only retracted, but one that was fully debunked. He says the true side-effects of vaccines are well published, but those small risks come nowhere close to the risks associated with contracting measles or whooping cough.

Immunizations are the greatest accomplishment in the entire public health industry, says Dr. Joseph Minor, the executive director of the Utah County Health Department. He says the vaccine-autism controversy is not a real controversy. It has been extensively studied, and he says there is absolutely no association between the two.  He says people who don't immunize are only exposing themselves, or their children, at risk. But Minor says that's dangerous for infants under 12 months, who are not yet old enough to be vaccinated, and are now at risk for measles.

That risk to inflants is a seriious concern, say Beth Luthy and Lacey Eden, faculty members at BYU's College of Nuring. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids rely on "herd effect," which is, in essense: "As long as everyone else around my child is vaccinated, my child won't get sick." As enough parents choose to opt-out of immunizations, this herd effect no longer works. This can lead to fatal consequences for medically-vulnerable children who cannot be vaccinated (at least right now).  They say a child's (or parent's) fear