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Published Wed, Feb 02, 2011 02:00 AM
Modified Wed, Feb 02, 2011 12:24 AM

Vaccination safety

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Tags: news | opinion - mailbag

Physicians welcome the recent decisions to discredit Andrew Wakefield's publications linking the measles vaccine to autism (Jan. 7 news article).

Wakefield conspired with attorneys who planned to recoup large cash settlements from vaccine manufacturers to create this plausible story. His 1998 publication in the Lancet created a furor in England that spread across the globe. Immunization rates fell. Death and disability from vaccine-preventable diseases rose. All vaccines were questioned by people who had any concerns about vaccines.

In our country, media celebrities joined the anti-vaccine movement, leading to major increases in vaccine refusal and at least 12 deaths of children in California from whooping cough in the past year.

As I reflect upon almost 34 years of immunizing large numbers of children in North Carolina, I have never had a patient who suffered any permanent side effects from a childhood vaccine. Yet, in our county young children have died from at least four vaccine-preventable diseases.

Parents must obtain vaccine safety information from their physicians, and not from the myriad of individuals and organizations who substitute anecdotes for science in their attempts to gain fortune and fame and to discredit the most successful public health program of all time.

Dave Tayloe, Jr., M.D.

Goldsboro Pediatrics

Past President

American Academy of Pediatrics

Goldsboro

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