A national public health group has released two new publications, each of which presents evidence that childhood vaccinations are safe, and urge Americans to continue to protect their children's health by immunizing them against common childhood diseases.
The publications are Vaccinations: What Parents Need to Know and What's the Story? The Scientific Facts About . . . Childhood Immunizations.
. Both are based on a recently released scientific report, The Promise of Vaccines: The Science and the Controversy, an in-depth review of issues and controversies related to childhood vaccinations. Published by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), it documents the widespread public health benefits of childhood immunization. Its author, David R. Smith, M.D., is a pediatrician and president of the University of Texas Tech Health Science Center.
The "What's the Story?" brochure for parents and the summary present an overview of the science of immunity. Vaccines have been responsible for remarkable advances in disease prevention. Alarmist reports linking vaccines to various diseases do not meet the scientific criteria required to indicate a causal relationship between such vaccines and any diseases.
According to Dr. Gilbert L. Ross, Medical Director of ACSH, "The benefits of childhood vaccination are more evident today than at any time in the past 50 years. These new publications are easily comprehensible for parents, are consistent with the excellent report on which they are based, and show that vaccines are likely to provide even more benefits to public health and children's health in the future."
Vaccines have had a greater impact on protecting children from death and illness from infectious diseases than has any other public health intervention. The public health importance of continuing coverage was demonstrated by the measles epidemic of 1989-1991, a period when coverage levels fell.
"These new pubications should be read by every parent who is concerned about the best means of protecting children's lives and health," states Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, ACSH's president. "Many primary care physicians and pediatricians would also learn something from reading these new brochures, as well as Dr. Smith's original paper."
