Side Effects Of Children's Vaccines

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children be administered a regular series of vaccinations throughout the first few years of life; 25 shots are routinely given to a child in the first 15 months of life alone, and several are repeated until a child turns six. However, there's an ongoing debate about the safety and necessity of these vaccinations, as well as their frequency, amounts and combinations of shots. Conflicting reports about the pros and cons of immunizations make it hard to get all the facts, but there are numerous side effects associated with children's vaccines that every parent should be aware of.

Pain, Swelling and Fever

Some adverse reactions to vaccinations are mild, such as tenderness, soreness, swelling, redness or itchiness at the site of injection. These reactions occur immediately after a child is given a shot, so it's easy to tell what caused them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), side effects are possible from any vaccine. As an example, a common shot for children is DTaP, which immunizes against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (also known as whooping cough). The CDC reports that 25 percent of children who get the shot experience these mild reactions or develop a mild fever.

Tiredness and Appetite Loss

Some children will also cry inconsolably, become tired or lose their appetite. The CDC says that over 30 percent of children who are injected with the DTaP vaccine become fussy, with one child out of 1,000 crying non-stop for at least three hours, and with one in 10 getting tired or losing her appetite. These signs usually show up within the first 72 hours after a shot.

Asthma

According to a study by the Wellington School of Medicine, New Zealand, published in October 1997 in the journal "Epidemiology," the incidence of asthma has been on the rise since vaccinations were introduced in the early twentieth century. The report also cites several other clinical studies that have proven there's an association between asthma and vaccines. Wendy Lydall of the New Zealand Immunization Awareness Society, and author of "Raising a Vaccine Free Child," points to an independently funded 1994 study by Dr. Michel Odent's Primal Health Research Centre, which found that the DTaP vaccine makes a child "five times more likely to suffer from asthma." However, an article published in the journal "Pediatrics" in November 2007 cites a multi-year study by France's Laboratoire Santé Publique (Public Health Laboratory), which began in 2003. It aimed to test those findings with pertussis and tuberculosis vaccines, but had so far (as of 2009) been unable to confirm a correlation between the shots and asthma.

Serious Reactions

In an article titled "The Vaccination Debate" in the Spring 2004 issue of "Inspired Parenting" magazine, Diana Fatayerji, M.S., Ph.D., wrote, "Adverse reactions that occur immediately after vaccination include fevers, allergic responses, deafness, convulsions, central nervous system disease and death." According to the CDC, these severe allergic reactions to vaccines are rare; in the case of DTaP, one child out of 14,000 will have a seizure or convulsions, and less than one child in every million will experience severe seizures, permanent brain damage or long-term comas.

Delayed Reactions

Delayed reactions are not usually officially recorded, because they're hard to measure and definitively link with the vaccinations. However, some experts think they are very common. According to Dr. Fatayerji, "Reactions that are delayed are less obvious but can result in persistent conditions, including epilepsy, behavior disorders, learning difficulties, immune system disorders and injury to the nervous system." Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D., the author of "Vaccination, Social Violence, and Criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain," says that autism, ADD, other nervous system diseases and even criminal behavior all began to increase when vaccinations were developed. He also states that immunizations have "caused more suffering and more deaths than has any other human activity in the entire history of medical intervention." By contrast, many pediatricians believe that vaccinations are relatively safe, and that their benefits outweigh any possible side effects.