Vaccination is one of the best ways parents can protect their children from life threatening diseases. However, for some parents, fears about the safety or necessity of vaccines, and rumors that vaccines can cause serious health problems are a cause for concern.
So, how can parents get the facts about vaccine safety?
Kristine Rietsma, DO, Pediatrician with BayCare Health System, discusses the importance of vaccinating your children and clears up some misconceptions about side effects and ingredients, and reinforces the risks of not vaccinating. Learn more about BayCare’s children’s health services.
Selected Podcast
The Safety of Childhood Vaccines: Fact vs. Fiction
Featured Speaker:
Learn more about Kristine Rietsma, DO
Kristine Rietsma, DO
Dr. Kristine Rietsma is board certified in pediatrics. She is concerned with the physical, emotional and social health of children from birth to young adulthood. Dr. Rietsma provides care within a broad spectrum of health services ranging from preventive health care to the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic diseases. She deals with biological, social and environmental influences on the developing child, and with the impact of disease and dysfunction on child development. Dr. Rietsma is also certified in pediatric advanced life support and neonatal resuscitation. She is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Osteopathic Association.Learn more about Kristine Rietsma, DO
Transcription:
The Safety of Childhood Vaccines: Fact vs. Fiction
Melanie Cole (Host): Watching your child get a shot isn't easy. It's even harder if you have fears or concerns about the safety or necessity of vaccines. So how can a parent get the facts about vaccine safety? Because vaccinations are one of the very best ways parents can protect their children from life-threatening diseases. My guest today is Dr. Kristine Rietsma. She's a pediatrician with BayCare Health. Dr. Rietsma, tell us a little bit about some vaccine preventable diseases. What are we looking at giving our children these days?
Dr. Kristine Rietsma, DO (Guest): Well most of the vacs or the diseases that we vaccinate against are ones that could cause very serious illnesses or very highly communicable illnesses among children, and most of the vaccines have very long-lasting effects until through adulthood or maybe they require boosters later on in life. But each vaccine works differently in its duration and its effectiveness.
Most of the vaccines most commonly given just are like hepatitis C, and pneumococcal vaccine. Measles mumps rubella is very common still done at the young age range. There's quite a wide variety though.
Melanie: So what parents wonder is are vaccines safe?
Dr. Rietsma: Yes, they are. So vaccines- I always tell parents the best place to go to get the most reliable and evidence-based information is on the CDC or American Academy of Pediatrics' websites, or even the World Health Organization. You know, there's a lot of misinformation out there when parents just Google certain things, so they have to be very careful on what stuff that they're reading nowadays online.
Mainly vaccines- the most common side effects that you're going to have are pain at the injection site, maybe a little redness or swelling at the injection site, or a low grade fever. Vaccines are highly monitored and there are millions of doses given throughout the country yearly, and there are certain systems that are set up to make sure that there aren't anything that are being caused vaccines. There are different monitoring systems such as like the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and Vaccine Safety Datalink, so that they can trend if there was a consistent adverse event that we wanted to avoid in our vaccines.
Melanie: Doctor, how is the schedule figured out? And what do you say to parents that say, "Well I'd like to look at an alternative schedule. I don't want them having all of these ones at once." How do they figure out the schedule and why is it so important to follow it?
Dr. Rietsma: They figure out the schedule by looking at the most common ages that people are likely to get certain diseases, and how severe an illness can be if gotten at a certain age. So obviously our very children or babies are more likely to get more of a severe type of disease or more likely to get an illness and have more adverse events from the illness itself, so we try to protect them during that time when they're building their immunity.
Babies will have certain protection from their mothers, but that will begin to wane, so we need to start giving them immunizations early on, even starting at birth through the first year of life to get their immune system ramped up for possible diseases that they may run into.
Melanie: Diseases like polio and mumps are rare, so many parents might say, "Well we're not seeing these diseases much, so why do we need to vaccinate against them?"
Dr. Rietsma: So one analogy I like to use for parents when they come across this is that let's say that we have a boat that has a leak, right? If we keep emptying out that boat, like use a bucket, keep emptying out that water, your boat never fills up. Alright? But if you empty it out and you still have the leak but you throw away the bucket, it's going to just slowly fill back up again. So in the sense that we've been able to keep our disease rate very low, it has not been eradicated, so if we get rid of the vaccine over time, that illness is going to again build back up and create a lot of burden.
Melanie: What's the association between vaccines and SIDS? How important is it for reduction in the rate of SIDS that children are vaccinated?
Dr. Rietsma: So it has shown to help reduce the rates of sudden infant death syndrome. At any point that a child may become ill or have more of a severe illness, they're at much higher increase of having a complication that could lead to SIDS. So it's very important that we continue to vaccinate to keep that rate low.
Melanie: And now I'm going to ask you about the controversy. So many people hear vaccines and autism and that's one of the reasons they're afraid. Please clear this up for the listeners about the link or lack thereof between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Rietsma: So that originally started back in the 1990's when there was a physician over in Britain who had posted a study talking about that there was this case series of kids who had developed autism in relation to the vaccine- the MMR vaccine. But what people don't know is that his study had a very biased selection and it was only of twelve children. It was a very small amount. And they also found that he had very serious undisclosed financial conflicts with lawyers and with companies who were producing who were producing the vaccines. So they realized that the information was very misleading.
Since then, they have done numerous studies with hundreds of thousands of kids over several leaders that have not shown any association between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Melanie: What about the risks of not vaccinating? Because this is going around today in the country, and we hear about it in the media. What is herd immunity, and why is it so important that every child get vaccinated?
Dr. Rietsma: So herd immunity basically is your amount of people in your herd, or your population, who are immune to a certain disease. If that threshold goes down, and you hit a certain level, then the immunity from your population doesn't protect those people who either did not build an immune response to the vaccine, or those who are unable to have the vaccine due to that they may have had it and they had an allergic reaction to one of the components so they're unable to receive that vaccine.
So with every different disease, there's a different herd immunity threshold. It may be as low as 40% but some things like measles are highly contagious and we would need that herd immunity up to about 90% at least. So when there are certain pockets of people in the population who decide not to vaccinate their kids, it lowers that threshold and there's more likely to be outbreaks and more serious adverse events from the disease.
Melanie: And as we're not necessarily getting into each of the specific vaccinations today, certain ones jump out like the chicken pox vaccine, and parents often wonder why do they need the chicken pox vaccine? They can just get the chicken pox and be done with it. But explain a little bit about that one, and then just touch on the HPV vaccine, and the importance of getting your preteens that vaccine.
Dr. Rietsma: So with the chicken pox vaccine, yes it is a virus and many people go through it without having any serious adverse events with it, but it can cause a lot of problems in pregnant mothers and newborn babies where they're more likely to be at a very increased risk of causing death or just very serious morbidities. So it's important to keep- by vaccinating to protect those other populations who are much more at risk.
As to HPV, there's a lot of concern, mainly because sometimes online it will read stuff about that HPV vaccine might cause infertility or Guillain-Barré syndrome, but they haven't found that that actually causes problems. The HPV vaccine is very effective and it has not been shown to have very many adverse events. It seems to be very safe, and now GARDASIL 9, which is the newest of the HPV vaccines, has been- they did trials in over 29,000 people, and mainly the side effects are very minor like pain, redness, swelling at the injection site, sometimes a little bit of dizziness, but the dizziness can really happen with any vaccine, especially in that age group.
Melanie: Wrap it up for us, Doctor, with your best advice. When parents ask you about alternative scheduling, or the safety and efficacy of vaccines, or some of these links and misconceptions about vaccines. As a pediatrician and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, what is your best advice about vaccinations and the importance of parents understanding the safety of them and getting their children vaccinated?
Dr. Rietsma: The most important thing a parent can do is to educate themselves with the right information by going on the CDC or the AAP or World Health Organization websites. They're going to get the most proper information. And I would recommend that they stick to the actual recommended schedule because we don't know how effective an alternative vaccine schedule is. And that also a lot of these alternative schedules cause more doctor visits, more needle pokes, and that in itself can be a burden on the parent and the patient.
Melanie: Excellent advice, Doctor. Thank you so much for being with us today. Really it's so important for parents to hear that vaccines are safe, and that it can protect your children from so many possibly deadly vaccine preventable diseases. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us today. You're listening to BayCare Health Chat. For more information, please visit www.BayCare.org. That's www.BayCare.org. This is Melanie Cole, thanks so much for listening.
The Safety of Childhood Vaccines: Fact vs. Fiction
Melanie Cole (Host): Watching your child get a shot isn't easy. It's even harder if you have fears or concerns about the safety or necessity of vaccines. So how can a parent get the facts about vaccine safety? Because vaccinations are one of the very best ways parents can protect their children from life-threatening diseases. My guest today is Dr. Kristine Rietsma. She's a pediatrician with BayCare Health. Dr. Rietsma, tell us a little bit about some vaccine preventable diseases. What are we looking at giving our children these days?
Dr. Kristine Rietsma, DO (Guest): Well most of the vacs or the diseases that we vaccinate against are ones that could cause very serious illnesses or very highly communicable illnesses among children, and most of the vaccines have very long-lasting effects until through adulthood or maybe they require boosters later on in life. But each vaccine works differently in its duration and its effectiveness.
Most of the vaccines most commonly given just are like hepatitis C, and pneumococcal vaccine. Measles mumps rubella is very common still done at the young age range. There's quite a wide variety though.
Melanie: So what parents wonder is are vaccines safe?
Dr. Rietsma: Yes, they are. So vaccines- I always tell parents the best place to go to get the most reliable and evidence-based information is on the CDC or American Academy of Pediatrics' websites, or even the World Health Organization. You know, there's a lot of misinformation out there when parents just Google certain things, so they have to be very careful on what stuff that they're reading nowadays online.
Mainly vaccines- the most common side effects that you're going to have are pain at the injection site, maybe a little redness or swelling at the injection site, or a low grade fever. Vaccines are highly monitored and there are millions of doses given throughout the country yearly, and there are certain systems that are set up to make sure that there aren't anything that are being caused vaccines. There are different monitoring systems such as like the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and Vaccine Safety Datalink, so that they can trend if there was a consistent adverse event that we wanted to avoid in our vaccines.
Melanie: Doctor, how is the schedule figured out? And what do you say to parents that say, "Well I'd like to look at an alternative schedule. I don't want them having all of these ones at once." How do they figure out the schedule and why is it so important to follow it?
Dr. Rietsma: They figure out the schedule by looking at the most common ages that people are likely to get certain diseases, and how severe an illness can be if gotten at a certain age. So obviously our very children or babies are more likely to get more of a severe type of disease or more likely to get an illness and have more adverse events from the illness itself, so we try to protect them during that time when they're building their immunity.
Babies will have certain protection from their mothers, but that will begin to wane, so we need to start giving them immunizations early on, even starting at birth through the first year of life to get their immune system ramped up for possible diseases that they may run into.
Melanie: Diseases like polio and mumps are rare, so many parents might say, "Well we're not seeing these diseases much, so why do we need to vaccinate against them?"
Dr. Rietsma: So one analogy I like to use for parents when they come across this is that let's say that we have a boat that has a leak, right? If we keep emptying out that boat, like use a bucket, keep emptying out that water, your boat never fills up. Alright? But if you empty it out and you still have the leak but you throw away the bucket, it's going to just slowly fill back up again. So in the sense that we've been able to keep our disease rate very low, it has not been eradicated, so if we get rid of the vaccine over time, that illness is going to again build back up and create a lot of burden.
Melanie: What's the association between vaccines and SIDS? How important is it for reduction in the rate of SIDS that children are vaccinated?
Dr. Rietsma: So it has shown to help reduce the rates of sudden infant death syndrome. At any point that a child may become ill or have more of a severe illness, they're at much higher increase of having a complication that could lead to SIDS. So it's very important that we continue to vaccinate to keep that rate low.
Melanie: And now I'm going to ask you about the controversy. So many people hear vaccines and autism and that's one of the reasons they're afraid. Please clear this up for the listeners about the link or lack thereof between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Rietsma: So that originally started back in the 1990's when there was a physician over in Britain who had posted a study talking about that there was this case series of kids who had developed autism in relation to the vaccine- the MMR vaccine. But what people don't know is that his study had a very biased selection and it was only of twelve children. It was a very small amount. And they also found that he had very serious undisclosed financial conflicts with lawyers and with companies who were producing who were producing the vaccines. So they realized that the information was very misleading.
Since then, they have done numerous studies with hundreds of thousands of kids over several leaders that have not shown any association between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Melanie: What about the risks of not vaccinating? Because this is going around today in the country, and we hear about it in the media. What is herd immunity, and why is it so important that every child get vaccinated?
Dr. Rietsma: So herd immunity basically is your amount of people in your herd, or your population, who are immune to a certain disease. If that threshold goes down, and you hit a certain level, then the immunity from your population doesn't protect those people who either did not build an immune response to the vaccine, or those who are unable to have the vaccine due to that they may have had it and they had an allergic reaction to one of the components so they're unable to receive that vaccine.
So with every different disease, there's a different herd immunity threshold. It may be as low as 40% but some things like measles are highly contagious and we would need that herd immunity up to about 90% at least. So when there are certain pockets of people in the population who decide not to vaccinate their kids, it lowers that threshold and there's more likely to be outbreaks and more serious adverse events from the disease.
Melanie: And as we're not necessarily getting into each of the specific vaccinations today, certain ones jump out like the chicken pox vaccine, and parents often wonder why do they need the chicken pox vaccine? They can just get the chicken pox and be done with it. But explain a little bit about that one, and then just touch on the HPV vaccine, and the importance of getting your preteens that vaccine.
Dr. Rietsma: So with the chicken pox vaccine, yes it is a virus and many people go through it without having any serious adverse events with it, but it can cause a lot of problems in pregnant mothers and newborn babies where they're more likely to be at a very increased risk of causing death or just very serious morbidities. So it's important to keep- by vaccinating to protect those other populations who are much more at risk.
As to HPV, there's a lot of concern, mainly because sometimes online it will read stuff about that HPV vaccine might cause infertility or Guillain-Barré syndrome, but they haven't found that that actually causes problems. The HPV vaccine is very effective and it has not been shown to have very many adverse events. It seems to be very safe, and now GARDASIL 9, which is the newest of the HPV vaccines, has been- they did trials in over 29,000 people, and mainly the side effects are very minor like pain, redness, swelling at the injection site, sometimes a little bit of dizziness, but the dizziness can really happen with any vaccine, especially in that age group.
Melanie: Wrap it up for us, Doctor, with your best advice. When parents ask you about alternative scheduling, or the safety and efficacy of vaccines, or some of these links and misconceptions about vaccines. As a pediatrician and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, what is your best advice about vaccinations and the importance of parents understanding the safety of them and getting their children vaccinated?
Dr. Rietsma: The most important thing a parent can do is to educate themselves with the right information by going on the CDC or the AAP or World Health Organization websites. They're going to get the most proper information. And I would recommend that they stick to the actual recommended schedule because we don't know how effective an alternative vaccine schedule is. And that also a lot of these alternative schedules cause more doctor visits, more needle pokes, and that in itself can be a burden on the parent and the patient.
Melanie: Excellent advice, Doctor. Thank you so much for being with us today. Really it's so important for parents to hear that vaccines are safe, and that it can protect your children from so many possibly deadly vaccine preventable diseases. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us today. You're listening to BayCare Health Chat. For more information, please visit www.BayCare.org. That's www.BayCare.org. This is Melanie Cole, thanks so much for listening.