In his 2017 book “Mistreated” Dr. Robert Pearl wrote “extending the full benefits of immunization to every person worldwide by 2020 would prevent an estimated 20 million deaths — mostly in children — and untold suffering from blindness, paralysis, and deafness for millions more.”  

The U.S. has a disease management system rather than a healthcare system:  we wait until preventable diseases occur and then spend trillions of dollars trying to manage them. However, there is one exception: immunizations, a safe, effective, cost-effective way to prevent death and disease.

Immunization involves use of vaccine, which is defined as “a suspension of attenuated or killed microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, or rickettsia), or of antigenic proteins derived from them, administered for the prevention, amelioration, or treatment of infectious diseases.” Vaccines mobilize our natural defense mechanisms, resulting in antibodies that prevent disease, without causing us to experience the disease. In underdeveloped countries, infectious diseases are still a major cause of death and disability, and this was once true in our country. But immunizations changed that.

In 1900 there were 21,064 cases of smallpox in the U.S., with 894 deaths. In 1920 there were 469,924 measles cases, with 7,575 deaths. The D in DPT vaccine stands for diphtheria, and In 1920, prior to a vaccine to prevent it, there were 147,991 cases of diphtheria, with 13,170 deaths. In 1922 there were 107,473 cases of pertussis (whooping cough), with 5,099 deaths. From 1951 to 1954 there was a yearly average of 16,316 cases of paralytic polio, with 1879 deaths. The R in the MMR vaccine stands for Rubella, which can be passed to the fetus, resulting in birth defects in the majority if the mother is infected during the first trimester. Prior to introduction in 1987 of the Hib vaccine against the Hemophilus bacteria, there were 20,000 cases of childhood infection a year, causing meningitis, mental retardation, and many deaths. Since vaccines were introduced for these and other diseases, they have almost disappeared in the U.S. For example, there has not been a case of polio here since 1979, and smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1977.

There are 2 vaccines that prevent cancer. One is the HPV vaccine, which prevents the sexually-transmitted wart virus that is the cause of cancer of the cervix and, and which can also cause cancer of the mouth and throat via oral sex transmission.  The other is hepatitis B vaccine, because chronic hepatitis B causes liver cancer.

Are vaccines safe? The short answer is yes, extremely safe. Minor irritation at the injection site is common with many types of immunization. Children can experience post-immunization irritability and fever, but these symptoms are less common since the introduction of a revised pertussis vaccine. Serious side effects from vaccines, such as anaphylactic allergic reactions, have an incidence of approximately one per 1 million vaccine doses, and can usually be treated successfully. A good analogy is that getting immunized is like wearing seat belts—very rarely someone drowns in a car accident when their car goes into a river and they can’t get their seat belt off, but the benefit of wearing seatbelts far outweighs this small risk.

 We’re living in an age of dangerous conspiracy theories, not based on facts, and often spread via the internet. There is a small but vociferous group of people, including some alternative providers, that make unfounded claims about alleged harm from vaccinations. In 1998 a British physician Andrew Wakefield wrote a paper published in the British medical journal Lancet, claiming a link between the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism based on a study without a control group involving 12 children. Later investigation by the British Medical Journal found that Dr. Wakefield falsified his data, and the Lancet retracted his article in 2010 after which Wakefield’s medical license was revoked. Subsequent studies involving millions of children have failed to show such a link, but it has taken time to educate the public about the truth. And it’s particularly troubling that the current administration in Washington has bought into the MMR/autism hoax.

Another reason for vaccine skepticism is a “gut feeling” that there is some sort of immune overload in kids from getting too many vaccines at once. Infectious-disease specialist Celine Gounder, M.D. recently pointed out in an article that “a century ago, a child got one vaccine—the smallpox vaccine—which carried about 200 viral proteins. The entire vaccination schedule today carries fewer viral proteins than that, and it’s because [modern vaccines] are more pure and targeted. In addition, young children will typically get four to six fevers a year from ordinary infections. Each one of those is a bigger challenge to the immune system than the several shots you might get in a well-baby visit.”

For decades the CDC was the best source for both patients and health care providers for evidence-based vaccine information, but under the stewardship of RFK, Jr. it can no longer be trusted. An editorial in the August edition of the American Family Physician journal states that “the leadership of the US Department of Health and Human Services and Center for Disease Control and Prevention made major changes to the federal child and adolescent immunization recommendations without clearly describing their scientific rationale.” Currently, the best sources for accurate vaccination information are the websites of organizations such as The American Academy of Family Physicians or the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Greg Feinsinger is a retired family physician with a special interest in prevention, treatment, and reversal of chronic disease through nutrition. He is available for free nutritional counseling and shop-with-a-doc grocery store tours. He can be contacted at 970-379-5718 or gfmd41@gmail.com.