The physicians of Triangle Pediatrics believe that the decision to immunize your child is the most important medical decision you will make on their behalf. In the past, diseases like smallpox, poliomyelitis, measles, and pertussis (whooping cough) were common. With the development and widespread use of immunizations, however, the number of patients suffering from many of these diseases and their serious complications has been dramatically reduced or eliminated.

Today, children have access to immunizations that were unavailable to their parents. These include the HIB, pneumococcal, rotovirus, HPV, meningococcal, and Hepatitis A immunizations. These immunizations may seem unfamiliar to you but they have undergone the same rigorous safety testing as older immunizations and provide much needed protection from illnesses.

We understand that parents may have many questions about immunizations. In recent years, a variety of media stories and several popular books have contributed to parental fears about the safety of immunizations. Many of these sources of information are not based on sound scientific understanding and research. Numerous well-designed, scientific studies have failed to demonstrate any connection between immunizations, the preservatives contained within them and diseases like Autism. In fact, the amount of mercury, including Thimerasol, in current immunizations is either zero or so negligible as to be biologically insignificant. Also, there is no scientific evidence that combining different immunizations in single injections or giving multiple immunizations simultaneously poses any additional risk over administering them separately. Indeed, we support the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to use combination immunizations whenever possible to minimize the discomfort for children and ensure timely protection from disease.

Failure by healthcare providers, parents, and guardians to comply with immunization guidelines, including the timing of doses, leaves individuals susceptible to serious and preventable diseases and places other members of the community at risk as well. While some side effects can occur, serious adverse effects are rare and we believe that extensive, unbiased scientific research supports the decision to immunize.

We want to clearly communicate how important timely immunizations are to your child’s health. Therefore, should you choose not to immunize your child or to deviate from the recommended schedule, we will require you to sign a “Refusal to Immunize” form. Also, we do not provide immunizations for single diseases that are available as combination immunizations. In other words, we will not “break-up” the MMR or DTaP immunizations. In addition, we ask you to commit to informing all medical personnel of your child’s unimmunized status at each and every encounter. This includes encounters at our office and at other locations such as urgent care centers and hospitals. As advocates for your children, we will continue to urge you to comply with immunization recommendations each time we see your child.

As always, we remain committed to promoting your child’s health and safety. We look forward to a long and productive relationship with your family.

Additional resources for parents:
www.immunizationinfo.org
www.aap.org
www.pkids.org/immunizations.php