Reform the childhood vaccination schedule

Reform the childhood vaccination schedule
Anne Hart | Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 11:30 pm

Columnist Anne Hart writes it's time to take a hard look at the aggressive schedule on which immunizations are given.

Mention the possibility of a link between autism and vaccines to a mainstream doctor and expect some eye rolls.

Or ridicule. Or, in some cases, downright contempt.

The mainstream medical establishment continuously rejects any correlation between childhood vaccinations and autism, a disorder that affects one in 150 children in the United States.

But that rejection isn't silencing valiant and vocal parents pushing for safer vaccines and a less aggressive immunization schedule after their children were diagnosed with autism.

Sam and Kim Spencer of Savannah are among those parents. The Spencers are not anti-vaccine. Nor do they believe vaccines are the sole cause of autism in their 7-year-old son, Patrick.

The Spencers believe Patrick was born with a predisposition for autoimmune issues. They say that genetic deficiency, in combination with an overly aggressive vaccine schedule, caused his autism.

The Spencers believe autism is a treatable disease. They've seen significant improvements in their son with biomedical therapies. Their hope is Patrick will recover from autism.

As a volunteer with a national autism awareness group Generation Rescue, Kim Spencer is organizing a Savannah showing of the film "Autism Yesterday" about defeating autism. The 30-minute film and Q&A session will be at 7 p.m. April 17 at in the sanctuary at Calvary, 4625 Waters Ave. The film, open to the public, spotlights five families who say their children recovered from autism.


Aggressive vaccine schedule

As the number of childhood vaccines has increased, so has autism.

In 1983, when autism affected one in 10,000 children, the mandatory vaccination schedule consisted of 10 shots. Today, when one in 94 boys is affected with an autism spectrum disorder, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 36 shots from birth to age 6.

The landmark case of Hannah Poling, 9, of Athens, proves that it's time to take a hard look at the vaccination schedule.

Hannah's family was awarded damages from a federal vaccine-injury fund because vaccines worsened or triggered a mitochondrial dysfunction, a problem involving cell metabolism.

Hannah had been developing normally until at 19 months, she received five shots of nine vaccines at one time. She then began to develop autistic-like symptoms.

Hannah was vaccinated in 2000, before the mercury-additive thimerosal was taken out of the vaccines.

The CDC says that while children get more vaccines than in the past, thimerosal hasn't been used as a preservative in routine childhood vaccines since 2001. The exception is some flu vaccines.

Despite this change, autism diagnoses have not decreased.

Which raises the question of whether other toxins in vaccines may trigger autism in genetically-predisposed children?

"Vaccines now are safer," said Dr. Ramon Ramos, a Savannah pediatrician who practices integrative medicine. "But there are still certain toxins in them that may be as bad as thimerosal."

Parents who are concerned about vaccines should ask their pediatrician to give fewer shots per visit, Ramos said.

Ramos sees the vaccine schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics as entirely too aggressive for small children. At his practice, shots are spread out over a longer period of time. No child is given more than three per visit.


Spread out the shots

Overloading a young child's immature immune system with too many vaccines at once is taking a risk, even if they are thimerosal-free, Ramos said.

But too often, more mainstream pediatricians discount parents' requests to spread out the vaccines and force parents to stick with the standard shot schedule, Kim Spencer said.

But why not, as a precautionary measure, reform the rigorous vaccination schedule? Why not limit the number of shots, so children aren't receiving sometimes five shots or more per visit?

It makes more sense to have a less aggressive shot schedule that doesn't scare parents away, than to have the public health risk of unvaccinated children.

Immunizations are life-saving. Polio, tetanus, measles are far more dangerous than the vaccines that protect against them.

But until pediatricians become more conservative, more parents will refuse to have their children vaccinated.

Right or wrong, we tend to fear the diseases we see on a daily basis. And children with polio or measles are, thankfully, rare.

But children with autism, as the Spencers know all too well, are not.


Contact Anne Hart at anne@southernmamas.com. Go to her Web site for parents at www.southernmamas.com.