Fears of long-range side effects fuel vaccine debate

Barbara Loe Fisher has been fighting about the safety of childhood vaccines for three decades.But the president of the National Vaccine Information Center says she's not opposed to vaccination so much as she's opposed to a "one-size-fits-all vaccine policy imposed by government health agencies."She became an activist after her oldest son, Chris, experienced convulsions and brain inflammation within hours of his fourth DPT (diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus) shot at age 2 1/2 in 1980, leaving him with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder.Although the bulk of scientific studies have found little evidence that vaccination is the cause of the growing number of young children being diagnosed with autism and other development or neurological disorders, Fisher says the question remains open because definitive, independent studies haven't been done."We've seen a doubling of the number of vaccines and doses that the government recommends to stay healthy before age 6, while at the same time we've seen a tripling of the number of children with learning disabilities, asthma, diabetes and other conditions," Fisher said. "The only way to put the question to rest is to do the proper science."To her, that means a large, independent study of at least several thousand children of diverse backgrounds enrolled in a full-scale investigation into all possible environmental causes of autism. That would mean some would go unvaccinated into their teens, some partially vaccinated and the rest following standard guidelines. So far, no organization in the medical establishment has agreed to sponsor such a test."No one is saying this is necessarily all due to the increase in vaccines, but vaccines shouldn't be left off the table when no one has come up with an answer,'' Fisher said.In the meantime, "parents simply have to be educated and put in the best position to consider the risks and benefits of vaccines and the various diseases. And they have to be free to make informed, voluntary decisions for their children. That includes being able to get exemptions and work with physicians to adjust vaccination schedules. Bigger and bigger government clubs are not going to work,'' Fisher said.Dr. Saad Omer, assistant professor at Emory University's School of Public Health in Atlanta, said he agrees that the public health community needs to do a better job communicating both the risks and benefits of vaccines. "And I think government and industry need to spend more, be more proactive, on vaccine safety research."On the front lines, no provider should be dismissive of parents with concerns about vaccines. You should listen and try to address them, not kick them out of your practice,'' he added.Fisher notes, "The safety movement was largely launched by middle class moms who had the education and time to analyze the medical literature. But now we're in a third generation of parents dealing with these issues, and it's a more diverse group with a much broader reach because of the Internet. They can see that adverse reaction reports are similar around the world."Yet despite an explosion of vaccine Web sites, pro and con, and assorted celebrity-led campaigns demanding safer vaccines, studies suggest that parents are most likely to accept the advice of their pediatricians on childhood immunization.Some doctors, following the lead of popular online pediatrician Dr. Robert Sears, do cooperate with parents on spacing out shots in the first years of life at wider intervals than recommended, on the theory that some babies' immune systems are less able to handle the challenge of multiple vaccines given the same day.Other doctors treat unvaccinated kids, but only if parents sign off that they've been warned of the risks."The public health infrastructure of this country, the CDC and the vaccine industry operate on the ideology that some adverse reactions to vaccines are acceptable to serve the greater public good. But how many is too many -- 5, 5000 or 5 million. It's a slippery ethical slope," Fisher said.(E-mail Scripps Howard News Service health and science writer Lee Bowman at bowmanl(at)shns.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)