Younger parents resistant to vaccinating their children in line with doctors’ schedules present an increasing risk to immunity among the larger population, researchers say.
Pediatricians face increasing pressure from parents who want to postpone certain vaccinations or otherwise deviate from the recommended schedule for children, according to a study released Monday by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine at the Anschutz Medical Campus.
In an average month, researchers found, 93 percent of pediatricians surveyed nationally received requests from parents to spread out vaccinations.
One in five pediatricians said that 10 percent or more of parents asked for the modifications, according to the study, published in the April 2015 issue of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Most of the pediatricians said they agreed to requests “often, always or sometimes,” even though 87 percent of them thought the delays put children at risk for contracting vaccine-preventable diseases, the study says. They often bowed to the pressure, they said, to “build trust” with families and/or avoid losing patients.
The trend grows despite scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and necessary — having prevented 732,000 deaths in the last 10 years, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s a nationwide concern, but Colorado kindergartners had the nation’s lowest measles and whooping cough vaccination rate, less than 82 percent, for the 2013-14 school year, according to CDC data. And younger Colorado children, ages 19-35 months, were ranked 45th among states for overall vaccination rates for seven childhood diseases.
The deep disconnect between the scientific community and a minority, albeit growing number, of “vaccine-hesitant” parents, is something pediatricians, researchers and public health officials say they don’t fully understand.
“The anti-vaccine movement has been very effective,” said Dr. Allison Kempe, co-author of the CU study and professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. “The pro-vaccine movement has not done as well.”
The CDC’s Respiratory Diseases Branch found that children with vaccine exemptions were 62 times more likely to get measles and 16 times more likely to contract whooping cough when they were not vaccinated against those diseases.
“The data is so strong that I can’t fathom how people can look at it and not understand,” Kempe said.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, edraper@denverpost.com or
