Talking with Families About Vaccines

A vaccine is a substance that, when given to a patient, triggers their body’s immune system to build protection (or an immune response) to a specific disease.

Vaccines are often given through an injection (or shot), although some are given orally (by mouth) or sprayed through the nose. They can be made from a weakened or inactive form of the disease. Or they may use just part of the germ (protein, sugar, etc.) to trigger an immune response.

The short answer is yes. And here’s why: 

Even after a vaccine is approved, the U.S. government still monitors its safety. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) allows people to submit a report suggesting a link between vaccines and a medical condition. Scientists then do careful research to see if this link exists.

Vaccine ingredients are well-researched and safe for humans.

Vaccines go through years of research in the lab. Vaccines are then tested with thousands of volunteers. Testing determines the safety, effectiveness, and dosage of the vaccine. The data from this testing is reviewed by scientists and doctors at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA must approve the vaccine before it can be used in communities. It takes about 10-15 years for a vaccine to be researched, tested, and approved.  The reason the COVID vaccine was released so quickly is partly because researchers have been studying its virus “family” for more than 50 years. Also, massive funding was provided to develop a COVID vaccine, which allowed the research to happen more quickly than usual.

It is true that children can develop immunity by recovering from a disease. However, there are some dangers to this approach. First, children have to suffer through the disease itself. Also, we can’t always predict when a child might have a serious or life-threatening response to a disease. For example, in most people, the flu is an unpleasant but mild illness. However, in some cases, the flu can result in severe illness, hospitalization, or even death. 

Vaccines allow children to develop immunity without the risks of the disease itself.

Natural immunity isn’t a better or more effective type of immunity for children. Natural immunity just means your child survived the disease. In fact, for some diseases, like HPV, vaccines offer better immunity than a natural infection.  

Vaccines give children the immunity they need without the risks that come from getting the disease.

Even diseases that seem mild, like chickenpox, are costly in terms of your child’s discomfort, missing school, and parents/caregivers missing work. And—it’s impossible to predict which children will have a serious response to chickenpox. In rare cases, chickenpox can lead to hospitalization.  

Also, if there is an adult in the home who is pregnant, they should not be exposed to chickenpox. Chickenpox in pregnant people can lead to severe health problems for adults and (rarely) serious birth defects for the fetus. Pregnant adults should not care for a child with chickenpox. 

Unfortunately, making it through chickenpox doesn’t guarantee your child’s immunity. Even if they get it once, they can still get it again. They can also get shingles as an adult, which is what happens when the virus that causes chickenpox reactivates in our bodies later in life. 

The chickenpox vaccine—given in two doses in childhood—offers protection to the child for their entire life and doesn’t result in any chickenpox scars!

Viruses like the flu are constantly changing. Each year, researchers try to find a vaccine “recipe” that best matches up to the most common strains of the virus. Unfortunately, sometimes this match isn’t perfect. And, if you catch a strain of the disease that isn’t “matched” by your vaccine, you can still get sick. What’s the good news? Research shows that vaccination helps to make your illness less serious.  

Another reason you may still get sick—even if you were vaccinated—is that immune protection from vaccines goes down, little by little, over time. This is why some diseases require boosters, or an additional vaccine to “boost” your immunity. These yearly vaccinations give you the best protection from illnesses like the flu. 

Healthy babies are born with an immune system that can fight many germs. In the womb, they also receive antibodies (proteins that help us fight off germs) from their mother to give them immunity to diseases. This is called passive immunity.

After babies are born, passive immunity doesn’t last very long, and there are some diseases that babies cannot fight.  

Sticking to the vaccine schedule, starting at birth, makes sure that babies stay protected from serious diseases from day one. 

Think about a brick wall. Each of the bricks helps to hold the wall up. If you start to remove bricks, eventually the wall will fall down. That’s a little bit like how immunity works. When children get vaccines, they are adding bricks to build a strong immunity “wall.” When a whole community comes together to build a strong immunity wall through vaccination, everyone is protected from disease. 

But when individuals take bricks out of their wall—like saying no to the measles vaccine—communities experience a gap in immunity. Diseases will find a “hole” in the wall and work their way into a community. This gap in community immunity is why we have begun to see small, local outbreaks of diseases, like measles, that we used to think were gone. 

Regular, consistent vaccines for all diseases—even if they are not in our community right now—help to keep all children safe from disease.

The short answer is no. Most children, even young babies, can easily manage the current vaccine schedule with few, if any, side effects. Most often, side effects are a temporary low fever, fussiness, or some local tenderness near the injection (shot).  

Although children get more vaccines now than they did 40 years ago, the vaccine formulas have gotten more efficient and targeted, while providing the same benefits. 

Vaccines do not cause autism. Thousands of studies have been done across the world, involving millions of children, to research this question. No reliable research-based link between vaccines and autism has ever been found. 

In 1998, a doctor published a paper—with false information—making a connection between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. He lost his medical license for presenting dishonest science. Unfortunately, the damage was done.  

For years, this misunderstanding has persisted. Why? It’s probably because children are receiving routine vaccines, including MMR, at about the same time that families begin to notice the symptoms of autism. However, these events are not related. One does not cause the other. We now know that autism is the result of changes in brain development that begin in pregnancy—long before vaccines are given to a child.  

Doctors do not get paid by drug companies for providing vaccinations. For children who are covered by health insurance, vaccination is billed as part of the child’s routine care. In many cases, the cost of delivering vaccines is more than the reimbursement doctors receive from insurance.