The Checkup - Wash Post blog re vaccines

[Guest guest]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/checkup/?hpid=news-col-blog

Vaccines: The Debate Continues

Do news reports and online chat about vaccination risks--and

particularly the MMR's supposed link to autism--give you pause?

Research

published in the April issue of Pediatrics suggests that parents don't

seem to be swayed by media reports of vaccination's potential risks.

, a pediatric infectious disease specialist (at the

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia when he did the study, now at the

University of Louisville School of Medicine) found that immunization

rates for U.S. kids ages 19 months to 35 months from 1995 to 2004

remained fairly steady, despite spikes in media coverage of claims that

the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine can cause autism.