Colorado children have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. With a kindergarten measles vaccination rate of only 80 percent, public health officials say it's just a matter of time before an epidemic hits the state.
Much of the debate over vaccinations centers on risks to the general population, as parents opt out due to health concerns and schools end up with many under-vaccinated students. A new study from researchers at the University of Colorado shows that doctors are increasingly getting pushback from parents who want them to space out the normal vaccination schedule, and are struggling to deal with this pressure.
Allison Kempe, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado and Children's Hospital Colorado, recently published the results of a survey of primary care doctors and pediatricians across the country. The research was published in the journal Pediatrics. Kempe found that 93 percent of the primary care doctors and pediatricians say they are dealing with parents who want the normal vaccination schedule changed.
This puts primary care providers "in a tough spot," said Kempe.
"They almost all feel very strongly that they are putting children at risk of vaccine preventable diseases, that they are doing potential harm," she said.
"There's lots of negatives, they perceive, and yet they feel like they are having very little success convincing parents about this."
Doctors say that between 92 to 95 percent of people need to be immunized to prevent an outbreak, a concept known as herd immunity. That's so if one person gets sick, he or she is surrounded by others who are immune, keeping the disease from spreading. But in pockets of the country and Colorado, there are areas where immunization rates are well below 80 percent.
Interview Highlights With Allison Kempe
On Parental Concern Over Vaccine Spacing
"Most of these families have vague concerns that have been raised of their reading of information on the Internet or from other concerned parents that are entirely not based on science. A common misconception among these parents is that getting too many shots at one time will somehow weaken their child's immune system."
On Concern Over Today's Vaccines Weakening A Childs Immune System
"In fact, vaccines are much purer now and they are actually getting far fewer antigens, which are the immunologic material, than their parents got when they were immunized. So even though they are getting more shots, they are getting fewer immunologically active particles. So that's really a fallacy that most people don't understand."
On Time Spent Talking Over Vaccines Vs. Other Health Issues
"Most well child visits are 18 minutes long, on average. What this survey showed is providers are spending 10 or more minutes with vaccine hesitant parents, so you can see that that would be more than half the visit spent on this issue alone."
"And what are they forgoing? They are forgoing all the preventative care they should be delivering, discussion of development, discussion of toilet training, parenting, safety, all those other issues."
