OSEA Safety Blog

Years ago, vaccines were “automatically” given to children at their doctor’s visits. Nowadays some parents are choosing to opt out of vaccines due to potential side effects. In recent months we are having a resurgence of diseases that were previously eradicated because of children not being vaccinated. The CDC (Center for Disease Control & Prevention) provides information including an immunization schedule and the methodology behind it should be considering such factors as risks, efficacy, spacing of vaccines in between doses.

The website Vaccine.gov includes a section on side effects. Most side effects are symptoms such as: pain, swelling & redness at the shot site, mild fever, chills, fatigue, headache & muscle & joint aches. Statistics show that serious side effects occur in about 1 to 2 people in 1 million doses. If you look as raw data/statistics it appears that the benefit outweighs the risk.

Take a disease such as Mumps which was basically extinct because of vaccinations; some states are seeing outbreaks of over 300 cases at the end of 2019. The danger of not protecting yourself or your family is that many of these diseases are air borne and easily spread.

The important take away here would be to do your research, talk to your doctor and make the best decision for you, your family and your community.