Pandemics, Epidemics, and Vaccines: History, Science, & Controversies: Childhood Vaccines

Always make recommendations by determining needed vaccines based on age (Table 1), determining appropriate intervals for catch-up, if needed (Table 2), assessing for medical indications (Table 3), and reviewing special situations (Notes).

Always make recommendations by determining needed vaccines based on age (Table 1), assessing for medical conditions and other indications (Table 2), and reviewing special situations (Notes).

Do vaccines cause autism? Is it OK to skip certain vaccines? Get the facts on these and other common questions.

Proponents say that vaccination is safe and one of the greatest health developments of the 20th century. Opponents say that children’s immune systems can deal with most infections naturally, and that injecting questionable vaccine ingredients into a child may cause side effects, including seizures, paralysis, and death.

This statistic shows the percentage of children in the U.S. who received all doses of recommended vaccines in 2017. It was found that in that year around 91.5 percent of children aged 19 to 35 months had received all their doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

It is a truism that acting in one's perceived self-interest is not always in one's self-interest. Perhaps nowhere is this truer in contemporary public health than for the issue of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) immunization and persistent fears about a possible connection with autism. Although each of these 3 diseases had been controlled in the United States with the widespread use of the MMR vaccine, in the past decade those gains have been slipping.