CDC says infants should be immunized before age 2; agree?

WASHINGTON – The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Monday that immunization is one of the best ways parents can protect their infants from 14 serious childhood diseases before age 2.

According to the CDC:

It is important for children to be fully immunized. Diseases that can be prevented with vaccines can be very serious – even deadly – especially for infants and young children. Immunizations have helped to greatly improve the health of children in the United States. Most parents today have never seen first-hand the devastating consequences that vaccine-preventable diseases have on a family or community. Although most of these diseases are not common in the United States, they persist around the world. It is important that we continue to protect our children with vaccines because outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases can and do still occur in this country.

The CDC says the United States sometimes experiences outbreaks of some vaccine-preventable diseases, but the spread of disease usually slows or stops because of immunization. Most parents choose to vaccinate their children and immunization rates in this country are at or near record high levels. In fact, fewer than 1 percent of children do not receive any vaccines. However, some children have not received all of their vaccines and therefore are not fully immunized. It’s important that children receive all doses of the vaccines according to the recommended immunization schedule. Not receiving all doses of a vaccine leaves a child vulnerable to catching serious diseases.

Some parents elect not to immunize, saying that the aforementioned decline in disease outbreaks happened before immunizations, better hygiene practices came about. They also say that the immunizations have both mercury and aluminum in them, which have been proven in mice to cause brain damage. Some also say that children will die from the immunizations, and even more have severe neurological damages.