The continuing debate about children and vaccines can get pretty heated. One of the concerns is that vaccines weaken a baby's immune system against other diseases, but new findings should ease that fear
For many little ones, routine vaccinations are a rite of passage. And sometimes, there can be a lot of them.
"Some parents are concerned that kids get too many vaccines in too short of a time," says Dr. Jason Glanz with the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research. "So by the age of two children receive up to 10 vaccines and 26 shots and so that is a lot of shots."
That's why Dr. Glanz and his team set out to see if getting that many vaccines was harmful.
"Thankfully our study show that it wasn't harmful," Dr. Glanz says.
Dr. Glanz says many parents are concerned vaccines could overload their child's immune system and increase their risk of getting an infection in the future.
The NOW's Kumasi Aaron asked Dr. Glanz, "Is there such thing as overloading an infant with vaccines?"
"We did not see a list of that," Dr. Glanz replied. "We saw no evidence that receiving all the vaccines and receiving them on time in anyway damaged the child's immune system."
The study looked at infants two years after they got those vaccines, and found they weren't likely to be more susceptible to other infections not targeted by those vaccines.
Dr. Glanz says, "I'm hoping he provides some reassurance that these vaccines are safe and the benefits greatly outweigh the risks and that if they have any concerns that they should talk about it with the doctors."
