Brendon Holmes on National Infant Immunization week
In 1979, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox was globally eradicated. Smallpox was a devastating disease that plagued the human race for thousands of years. Evidence of smallpox was even found on Egyptian mummies.
Edward Jenner, and English physician, discovered the effectiveness of using cowpox to protect humans from smallpox in 1796. This began the first widespread use of immunization, or vaccination, to protect against disease. Just over 200 years later, smallpox epidemics no longer cause blindness, disfigurement, and death. Smallpox was completely eradicated by worldwide vaccination efforts.
Today, infants and children are no longer immunized for smallpox. There is no need, the disease does not exist. There are however, still diseases for which infants and toddlers should be immunized.
“I believe in vaccinations,” said. Brendon Holmes, a pediatrician at the Intermountain Hurricane Valley Clinic. “Vaccine shots really do help by preventing some very serious diseases. I have seen unvaccinated children suffer from diseases that could have been prevented with immunization, and it can be devastating.”
Many vaccines routinely given to infants today protect against diseases that used to be devastating and even deadly. Diseases such as polio are no longer found in the Western World, but because the disease still exists. All children should continue to be vaccinated.
“It is becoming more and more common,” Holmes said, “for parents to choose not to have their children vaccinated. Verified studies have shown that vaccines have no link to autism and the benefits to immunization far outweigh the risks involved with vaccination.”
Immunizations routinely given throughout the first 24 months of life protect against diseases such as hepatitis (liver infection), diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, bacterial meningitis, measles, chicken pox, mumps, tetanus, and German measles among others. These are all serious diseases with potentially serious outcomes.
“It is not possible to get the disease itself from the vaccine,” said Holmes. “Vaccines are thoroughly tested and deemed safe before they become available to the public. Vaccines work by introducing inert forms of disease, with which the body’s immune system then develops immunities to the disease. If later exposed to a disease, a vaccinated child will most likely not contract the disease.”
Recent outbreaks of measles could have been avoided if all of the children exposed had been previously vaccinated. When enough children, or people, in a community are vaccinated, a herd-immunity exists. With more people immune to a disease, the less likely it is to occur and spread within a community.
“Vaccines really are all about the overall health of everyone,” said Holmes. “Vaccines not only protect the child who receives them, they also protect others. If a child does not get a disease, he or she cannot pass it on to someone else.”
Parents who have concerns about immunizations should seek counsel from their child’s pediatrician or family physician.
“Talk with your child’s doctor,” said Holmes. “Many doctors are willing to make adjustments within the standard immunization schedule, and find something that fits the parents’ comfort level, while protecting the child from preventable disease.”
Remember that while polio does not usually occur locally, with continued vaccination in all corners of the Earth, it will eventually be eradicated like smallpox. Many of the dreaded diseases of the past, and possibly those of the future, can be eradicated through continued immunization.
To make sure infants and children are on schedule with immunizations, contact the child’s healthcare professional, and attend all scheduled appointments.
This LiVe Well column represents collaboration between healthcare professionals from the medical staffs of our not-for-profit Intermountain Healthcare hospitals and The Spectrum. Contact 435-435-251-2108 for information.