Parents And Physicians Report Increased Concerns About Some Vaccines.(Brief Article)

2001 MAY 23 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

In the wake of recent publicity surrounding vaccine safety issues, parents and the physicians who treat their children are reporting more concern about some vaccines, and even refusing certain vaccines for their children, a new University of Michigan study finds.

Nearly 70% of the U.S. doctors surveyed for the study said that parent worries have risen recently, and more than a third of the physicians reported their own concerns had also increased.

That increase in concern has translated into action, the survey also found. More than 90% of pediatricians and 60% of family practitioners surveyed reported that at least one parent had refused to allow their child to receive a particular vaccine in the past year. And up to a third of family physicians and 12% of pediatricians said they did not recommend particular vaccines to parents either routinely or occasionally.

UMHS researchers performed the survey of nearly 750 randomly selected pediatricians and family practitioners across the United States in cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The results were presented May 1, 2001, at the joint meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies and the American Academy of Pediatrics in Baltimore, Maryland.

"Concerns regarding vaccine safety are increasing, and physicians need to be aware of this concern and be knowledgeable about the facts," says Gary L. Freed, MD, MPH., director of General Pediatrics and the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit at UMHS. "There's a significant amount of misinformation and rumor about vaccines. The more we take this issue seriously, the better job we'll do of ensuring immunization and preventing disease."

For three years, Freed and his colleagues have been the only group in the nation funded by CDC to regularly study current vaccine issues for the CDC's National Immunization Program. The new results come from a survey that asked physicians about their patients', and their own, attitudes and actions regarding vaccine safety in general and specific vaccines whose safety has been questioned.