Parents Follow Pediatrician Advice on MMR Va...(pact of media coverage ofimmunization co...),Health
pact of media coverage of immunization controversies."
The Lancet study, led by Andrew Wakefield, was flawed and later discredited, although widely publicized in the United Kingdom. National rates of MMR immunization in Britain fell from 92 percent to 73 percent following publication, resulting in measles outbreaks and the first measles death in the U.K. in more than a decade.
The Children's Hospital study set out to provide the first population estimates of MMR vaccination rates in the U.S. following publication of the Wakefield study and its subsequent media coverage. According to the data, nearly 1 in 50 U.S. children missed the opportunity for MMR immunization in the two years following the Wakefield publication. In private physician practices non-immunization rose as high as 1 in 40 children.
Significant mainstream media coverage of the MMR-autism controversy did not begin in the U.S. until almost two years after the Lancet paper. By that time, the number of children not receiving their MMR vaccinations was returning to the pre-Wakefield study level. Children were identified as intentionally missing MMR vaccinations if they were up to date for other childhood immunizations including hepatitis B, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and Haemophilus influenzae, but not MMR. The current study looked at immunization rates through 2004.
The decision to immunize children is influenced by three things: the parents' willingness, the health care provider's attitude and input toward guiding the decision, and the vaccine's availability. Since there was no supply shortage during the study period, the decline can only be attributed to either the parents' or the health care provider's reluctance to vaccinate. Some medical providers, made aware of the Wakefield study, may initially have become hesitant to administer the MMR vaccine, said the authors.
"The lesson for the public health community may be that the willingness
to immuni
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| SOURCE The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Copyright©2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved |
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