On Parenting
Study: Early Childhood Vaccines Don't Damage Kids' Development
Many parents worry that the vaccines recommended for a baby in the first year of life are just too much too soon for an infant's immature immune system. Those fears have fueled a growing trend of parents delaying or refusing to vaccinate their babies. But a new study in Pediatrics examined the long-term effects of delaying vaccines and found that children whose parents refused or postponed vaccines did no better than children who were vaccinated on time, when tested on things like speech, language, achievement, fine motor skills, attention, and general intellectual function seven-to-10-years later.
The news comes the same day that Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor who did more than any one person to propagate the belief that vaccines cause autism, was barred from practicing medicine in Britain. Wakefield's 1998 study, published in The Lancet, fingered the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, as a cause of autism, though he looked at just 12 children. In February, The Lancet retracted his study, and Britain's regulatory group said Wakefield had been "dishonest" and "misleading" in conducting the research, including failing to disclose that he was working with lawyers who sought to sue vaccine manufacturers. Wakefield has moved to the United States.
