child sick in bed with a fever

What Will We Do Without Vaccines?

July 24, 20254 min read

I was talking with a mom in my office the other day about vaccines. She has procrastinated about her infant’s vaccines and wanted to talk with me about it before proceeding. She has older children and she vaccinated all of them fully. She has been hearing all sorts of things about vaccines recently and frankly, it has all made her nervous. And if I did not have the knowledge about them that I do, I might feel the same way. 

Infant being examined by doctor


I asked her what she has been hearing. 


One thing was that there were lots of ‘new’ vaccines. She did not know anything about them and this statement makes it sound like the production of vaccines has been hurried along and not done with care. This is far from the truth. And newsflash- there are not any ‘new’ vaccines for little ones. Not for many years. I think that the ‘warp speed’ of covid vaccine production made many people nervous. for the purposes of this discussion,  I am going to exclude that from the points I am making here.


She had also heard about aluminum in vaccines. Very small doses of aluminum are in many vaccines to act as an adjuvant to stimulate the immune response of the person getting the vaccine. There has been some concern raised about the aluminum exposure from vaccines and fears that it is contributing to neurodevelopmental disorders in children. We have known for many years that the amount of the aluminum is small compared to that found in our food and water and even in breast milk. It is also processed and eliminated quickly from the body.  To add to the existing body of evidence that supports the safety of aluminum, this month, the results of a Danish study of over 1 million children was released looking at this very thing. It was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and is a peer reviewed study. They found the following:


“This nationwide cohort study did not find evidence supporting an increased risk for autoimmune, atopic or allergic, or neurodevelopmental disorders associated with early childhood exposure to aluminum-adsorbed vaccines.”


After addressing her concerns and answering her questions, she realized that her fear was likely based on misinformation and she is going to go ahead with the routine vaccines for her little one. We were chatting some more and she said she is very aware of the health of children in other countries where vaccination is not available and asked the rhetorical question “What will we do without vaccines?”. She made an excellent point. 


The infant and child mortality in underdeveloped countries is sky high because they do not have access to vaccines and sanitary living conditions and clean water the same way the people in the more developed world do. The US government has recently elected to do away with aid to those underdeveloped countries which includes vaccines for millions of babies and small children. Which means the problem in other countries is going to worsen. The bacteria and viruses that these vaccines are meant to protect from will become more prevalent in carriers that are not vaccinated. US citizens are not immune to these things without individual as well as herd immunity. These organisms are alive and well and waiting on a vulnerable host to attack. 


A JAMA study released just this past week interviewed around 2000 new or expectant parents in the US and found that only 35-40% of them were planning to fully vaccinate their new babies by 18 months. If these numbers translate to the larger population, we are in grave danger of losing our herd immunity which protects those unvaccinated individuals now, but will leave them much less protected as immunity in the population wanes. It will also leave vulnerable the individuals who have been vaccinated but have not responded to them. And that does happen. 


What does this mean for babies and young children? It means that as time goes on and herd immunity goes down, we will return to historic levels of infections like meningitis, blood infections and severe respiratory disease, which will lead to a massive increase in infant and child mortality but also morbidity which means chronic diseases and conditions. The cost of meningitis is not always death. It often means living with brain damage that is not reversible or other things that no one wants to see a child suffer. The other cost that may not have been considered is the cost to the next generation of babies. As less women who carry children are immunized, more of them will catch preventable infections like rubella during pregnancy which often results in complications like deafness in their fetus. 


So what will we do without vaccines? We will see a whole world of suffering and loss that most parents never imagine happening to their family because we have been so successful in this country in making child mortality so rare. Please stick with science and vaccinate your babies. This is not something we can afford to get wrong.

Dr. Leslie is a pediatrician for over 23 years. She loves her job helping young families and children. She also enjoys spending time with loved ones, traveling, baking bread and painting.

Leslie Treece, M.D.

Dr. Leslie is a pediatrician for over 23 years. She loves her job helping young families and children. She also enjoys spending time with loved ones, traveling, baking bread and painting.

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