STICKING TO A SCHEDULE

Here are answers to common questions provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Q: How are the timing and spacing of shots determined?

A: Scientists study what age a child’s immune system will provide the most effective protection after receiving a vaccine and when they are most at risk for each disease.

Q: Why are three or more doses of some vaccines needed?

A: It depends on how long a vaccine provides protection. They are spaced out over a period that gives children the best protection.

Q: Can shots be spread out over a longer period?

A: This would leave a child unprotected for a longer time. Babies are more likely to get very sick from vaccine-preventable diseases, so vaccinating them following the recommended schedule works best with the child’s immune system. Spreading out shots has not been scientifically shown to be safer or offer the same protection.

Q: Do multiple shots in one visit overwhelm a child’s immune system?

A: No. Children are exposed to more germs every day just by playing, eating, and breathing than what is in any combination of vaccines.

A MOTHER’S FEARS ABOUT AUTISM

When Traci and John Sickels’ first child, Dallas, was diagnosed at age 5 with autism spectrum disorder, they grasped for reasons.

“We figured it had to be genetic triggered by some environmental cause,” says Traci, a teacher at Minneola Charter School. “In the news media, vaccines as a cause of autism was very popular, and we had no idea what the truth was.”

A 1998 British study claiming a link between vaccinations and autism stoked worldwide fear, though it later was retracted and no scientific studies since have proved any connection.

When the couple’s daughter, Presli, came along around 2008, their vaccine-autism concerns remained. Dallas had received 21 vaccines by age 2 and 30 by age 5. By the age of 6 months, Presli already had received 15 shots.

“This is when I decided, ‘No way am I going to put another child through this!’” Traci says. “I just felt this was an overload to her system.”

The couple stopped giving Presli her shots and put her on an adjusted vaccination schedule until age 5. They were living in Arkansas at the time and were able to obtain a state waiver for her shots based on philosophical reasons, Traci says.

“Once I stopped vaccinations, I felt relieved and watched my child make great strides with no delays,” she says.

Dallas had started showing signs of autism at 3. He received two MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines within 13 months of each other, at ages 1 and 2. After the second shot, Traci and John noticed that he started to change drastically and stopped speaking.

That was one reason they delayed Presli’s vaccine schedule. When Presli started to speak clearly at 3, the couple felt she was in the clear and started her on a modified schedule to prepare for school: one vaccine at a time and never more than one injection per visit. Many booster shots were no longer needed by that age, so she received about 10 fewer shots. She received the MMR vaccines at ages 7 and 8.

Traci acknowledges that she has only opinions about vaccines and no medical background. But she still is not 100 percent sure that vaccines didn’t affect Dallas, now 18, while Presli, 11, has been healthy with far fewer vaccinations.

“I could have been a crazy, scared parent but I was trying to be cautious, and having one child having autism scared me,” Traci says. “I didn’t want to be the cause of another child having autism because I gave her vaccines.”