Parents! Having your children optimally immunized against every vaccine-preventable disease may still not suffice to fully protect them from these diseases. Such protection may require that you, too, are immunized.
1. Experience has shown that there are optimum ages to administer vaccines to children and adults. It is the age before (1) the person is likely to become infected with that disease, (2) the vaccine provides maximum protection, and (3) the protection is long-lasting. These features vary greatly for different vaccines; some give lifetime protection while others do not.
2. Well-functioning programs exist for vaccinating children, but not for adults. Pediatric immunization schedules are prepared by a national board of respected experts and the vast majority of parents comply with their recommendations. They take their infant/young children to the same pediatric facility every month or two to receive a slew of shots to prevent fourteen diseases. These facilities maintain records and the records are freely available to parents.
3. Programs to vaccinate adults function poorly. The importance of vaccinating adults is a fairly new development. Many adults’ physicians are not well informed on vaccinations and most adults are unaware that they too need routine vaccines. Moreover, many adults see physicians only when they are ill and, increasingly, they see specialists who treat one body part and do not offer vaccines. When adults do receive vaccines, it may be from different facilities, sometimes pharmacies, with no central location keeping records.
4. Vaccinating adults protects children. For example,during the first year of life infants are only partially protected against many vaccine-preventable diseases. One reason: it requires several months and multiple doses for some vaccines to establish optimal immunity. One way to protect the infants is to eliminate the most important source likely to make infants ill – unvaccinated adults.
5. Having yourself vaccinated to protect your children protects yourself. Vaccines provide excellent protection. However, some vaccines are not providing protection for as long a time period as previously anticipated. Maintaining protection requires booster doses. Some childhood vaccines require boosting already in teenage years. Maintaining protection for adults is especially important because many vaccine-preventable diseases are far more serious for adults than children. For example, some infections during pregnancy may cause catastrophic damage to the unborn child.
6. Vaccines are especially important for the elderly. Being up-to-date with vaccines throughout adulthood negates the need to give certain vaccines. Advanced age weakens the immune system. This tends to worsens the severity of some vaccine-preventable diseases while lessening the protection afforded from the vaccines. Moreover, many elderly have chronic illnesses, some immune system-related, or are taking medications or treatments that affects the immune system, further complicating the situation.
7. Travel increases your chances of being exposed to an infected individual. Overseas, even in developed countries, vaccination programs are less comprehensive than in the US. This increases the risk of exposure to an infected individual. And traveling with children makes it more likely to have contact with local children, the major source of such diseases. And you need not travel overseas to be exposed. Millions of tourists enter the US. You encounter tourists on local fights, at amusement parks and in national parks. Diseases may also be imported by college students (1.2 million entered the US in 2017), hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and adoptees from overseas.
8. Fewer American children are being vaccinated. The percentage of children under two years of age who are incompletely or not at all vaccinated has quadrupled since 2000. While that percentage remains relatively small, the trend is troublesome. About 100,000 children in this age group aren’t fully vaccinated against the fourteen vaccine-preventable diseases. Some health care providers acquiesce to parents’ requests to start vaccination for infants at a later date, give fewer vaccines at a time, or increase the intervals between doses. Such actions postpone optimum protection.
9. Start keeping records of the vaccines you receive. This is an obvious recommendation but one that few adults follow. Many medical facilities now print summaries of the reason for your visit, diagnosis, and treatment and immunization, if any, given. Store the reports with your other important papers. (Confession: I am a retired (elderly) pediatrician. I have received immunizations in recent years but have no written proof of when, where and what I received, and if and when booster doses are due. I am changing my ways as of now.)
10. Retrieve your immunization records from the past. Ask your parents or relatives if they recall the medical facilities you were taken to as a child. Records may still exist. Large clinics, colleges and the military tend to keep records longer than private medical offices. If you traveled internationally you may have a booklet listing the vaccines you previously received plus the vaccines you needed for the trip. Your age can be a clue; you may need vaccines that were not yet available when you were a child. In some situations a blood test determines susceptibility or immunity. If immunity cannot be established, giving you an additional dose of the vaccine is not known to be harmful.
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