General Vaccine Information

Many parents are interested in learning more about vaccine, especially the risks and benefits to their children and family. However, all to often, parents do not know where to turn for reliable, evidence based, information and far too often rely on "hearsay" of friends and neighbors when making these important choices for their family. We feel it is our responsibility to help you learn the facts - and untruths - about childhood vaccines. We have put together the following list (with hyperlinks wherever possible) to informed sources. As always, if you have questions about your specific situation, please do not hesitate to ask us!

Influenza Vaccine

For more information specifically targeted at the current year's influenza strain, H3N2v, and vaccine, visit the Center for Disease Control's (CDC's) Seasonal Influenza (flu) web site at www.cdc.gov/flu

The Vaccine Information Sheets (VIS) for the vaccine are available at the CDC site.

Vaccine Risks and Benefits

  • AAP News, a monthly publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics contains current policies and immunization recommendations. You can subscribe to this publication, which has a great deal of reliable information relevant to children's health issues besides immunization concerns. To order, call (800)433-9016. You can also find this information available on the AAP's web site.
  • Report of the Advisory committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) formulates national vaccine recommendations and designates those to be included in the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. While these statements are published in a supplement to the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), and available from the ACIP web site, they can also be obtained directly by telephone request at (800)232-2522.
  • The CDC National Immunization Information Hotline provides the location of immunization clinics, information about immunization schedules and safety issues, and answers to common questions about immunization. The hotline is (800)232-2522 and is open between 8 AM and 11 PM EST, Monday through Friday.
  • The FDA's Office of Communication, Training and Manufacturers' Assistance maintains a consumer information hotline to answer questions about vaccine safety and regulations. The office's website has current vaccine information, including vaccine recalls: http://www.fda.gov/cber
  • Immunize-L is a free listserv operated by the National Technical Immunization Service (NTIS). Three times each week it sends out the Immunization News Service containing abstracts from newspapers, news wires, medical journals, and other periodicals on immunization-related biomedical, clinical, epidemiological and psychosocial issues. To subscribe, send an email message to [email protected] with "subscribe immunize-l firstname lastname" in the body of the message.
  • Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports publishes the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule. United States, annually or semiannually as a supplement to the MMWR reports. These reports and recommendations can be obtained from the CDC web site: http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr.html
  • The National Immunization Program (NIP) website, http://www.cdc.gov/nip, uses a question and answer format to provide information about immunizations. It also offers useful publications, including vaccine safety fact sheets for each of the current vaccines.
  • Red Book - Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics This book contains the current recommendations on the use of all licensed vaccines and guidelines for the prevention and management of infectious diseases in children. This book is the reference used by most pediatric offices and is always at hand in our office. You can find it at many book stores or you can buy it from the AAP direct . To order, call (800)433-9016. Or read ours.
  • What Every Parent Should Know About Vaccines by Paul Offitt, MD and Lou Bell, MD of the Infectious Diseases Department of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, presents a history of vaccines, information on the diseases they prevent, and the risks and benefits of each vaccine. This book is available at most books stores, or directly from Dr. Offitt at CHOP. Highly recommended for common sense recommendations. We used to have several copies to lend out, but the books never came back.
  • Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status Among US Children With Older Siblings With and Without Autism JAMA 2015;313(15)1534-1540 Although there have been literally thousands of studies that should have finally put to rest the question of whether the MMR vaccine causes Autism, here is the latest (and one of the largest) studies of 95,727 children, 1929 of whom had an older sibling with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This study definitively finds ABSOLUTELY NO RISK for ASD with the MMR vaccine. Google the site for the Journal of the American Medical Association.
  • Dr. Plotkin explains his research and development of the MMR vaccine. This is a very interesting and educational video on how this most important vaccine came to be. https://hillemanfilm.com/stanl...