Current controversies in childhood vaccination.

As pediatric practitioners, one of the contemporary challenges in providing medical care for children is the increasing proportion of vaccination refusal. This occurs in spite of the demonstrated individual and collective benefit and cost effectiveness of vaccination. Controversies regarding vaccine components and side effects have misled parents to believe that vaccines might be harmful based on inaccurate data from the Internet, celebrities, as well as misinterpreted and frankly bad science. This belief of vaccines being harmful has led to fear and decreased immunization rates in spite of sound scientific evidence supporting the safety of vaccines and their lack of association with autism, developmental disabilities or other medical disorders. Some parents also believe in alternative ways to avoid disease, often adhering to practices that have little foundation in the best of empiric science. It is not a coincidence that recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and pertussis (whooping cough), have occurred in areas where vaccination has declined largely due to exemptors. This article intends to review some of the common vaccine myths and controversies and to serve as a resource to provide accurate information and references for busy practitioners and the families that we serve.