PIP Vaccine Philosophy
PIP Vaccine Philosophy
Many of our families express to us their uncertainty, confusion, and general discomfort with vaccinations. There are many myths about vaccinations, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. The most common concern centers on whether or not vaccines can cause autism which is a serious disorder of mental development. Another common concern is that the diseases prevented by vaccines aren't really significant public health threats. This belief is due, in part, to the fact that most new parents have never seen or had any experience with any of these diseases. One reason for this lack of familiarity is, as infectious disease experts correctly point out, due to the effectiveness vaccines have had in eliminating these diseases. The confusion is further complicated by the fact that the myths and misinformation are given validity by internet web sites and chat rooms that create a sense of scientific fact around what really amounts to individual opinions, fears and anecdotal personal experience.
We recognize that this confusion creates a certain degree of fear in parents who aren't sure how to go about making such a complicated decision. This decision involves a vast amount of scientific information as well as voluminous and passionate non-scientific opinions. It is our desire to support you and partner with you through the process of making this decision. Hopefully, we can provide you with perspectives that will help you to navigate these frightening waters. However, we must all recognize that an absolute moment of certainty about the future never comes. For all of us, we must inform ourselves to the maximum extent possible and then take a leap of faith, based on love and intuition.
In order to assist you in making a good decision about vaccinations, we will first discuss what it is that makes up the nature of a good decision. A decision is good or bad according to how it is made. If you do your due diligence in informing yourself about an issue and then take a leap of faith, you have made a good decision, regardless of the outcome. For example, if a person investing in the stock market selected a stock on a whim with almost no information about the company, and the stock tripled in value, most people would say that it was a good decision. We would say that this was a bad decision with a good outcome. If someone else who has investigated a company very thoroughly, invested in its stock and, due to some unexpected bad news, the stock plummeted in value, people might say that this was a bad decision. We would say it was good a decision with a bad outcome. What makes a decision good or bad has nothing to do with the outcome because the person making the decision cannot possibly know what the outcome will be and therefore cannot factor the outcome into the decision.
What most parents are trying to figure out with vaccinations is how to secure the safest future for their child. However, no amount of intellectual knowledge increases one's ability to predict a future event. Imagine a person memorizing all of the past winning number combinations of a power-ball lottery. He would still have no better chance of selecting the next winning lottery combination than someone who knows nothing about the past winning numbers. So it is clear that no amount of knowledge will actually help someone determine what the future holds.
We are not suggesting that you should be uninformed about vaccines and the diseases that they prevent. On the contrary, we believe the more you know the more comfortable you will be with your decision and the outcome. However, there is such an extensive body of knowledge about vaccines that for us to educate our parents thoroughly is beyond the scope of our well child care visits. This is a task you must take on and accomplish for yourself. For that reason we will give you handouts to read that give a good overview of each vaccine and the disease or diseases it is intended to prevent. If you wish to read more, it is our recommendation that you visit the Centers for Disea