The vast majority of doctors are asked by parents to space out vaccines for kids under age 2 instead of going with the timeframe recommended by health authorities, a new survey finds.
Ninty-three percent of physicians said they’re regularly asked to vary from the schedule laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one in five said they get that request from at least 10 percent of patients, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics.
The findings underscore a growing hesitancy among parents for their children to receive all of the vaccines exactly when the CDC recommends it. While no studies link vaccines to developmental disorders, that hasn’t extinguished claims by some websites and doctors that they can hurt kids.
Twelve percent of doctors said they’ve dismissed patients from their practice for bucking the recommended vaccine schedule, but for the most part they abide by the requests. Three in four doctors said they sometimes or often agree to spread out vaccines, even though 87 percent said they believe that puts kids at risk for contracting infectious diseases.
The number of vaccines recommended for children has grown in recent years; now they’re advised to be vaccinated for 14 diseases before age 6, which requires 29 shots, some given simultaneously.
The recent outbreak of measles in California and 16 other states has drawn attention to the issue of vaccines and whether parents should be allowed to skip them by citing religious or personal objections. Every state but two allows parents to opt-out.
The survey included 534 physicians who responded to email and mail surveys between June and October 2012. It’s published in the April edition of Pediatrics.
