National Immunization Awareness Month

With the H1N1 and the upcoming seasonal influenza season, this is interesting timing for National Immunization Awareness Month.

National Immunization Awareness Month is brought to the public’s awareness by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) in an effort to educate people about the importance of immunizations, whether for infants or seniors, and what immunizations are given in what order.

Vaccines are given for illnesses that are preventable. The ones most people know about are for the childhood illnesses, like measles, or accidental illnesses, like tetanus, but there are many more vaccines available. Not all North Americans need all vaccines, but some may need special ones, as with yellow fever, if they travel to countries that have those types of diseases.

There has been a lot of controversy about vaccines in young children and their now-disproven link to autism. No-one is downplaying the seriousness of autism but it isn’t associated with vaccines and even the doctor who first claimed this has come out to say that he was wrong. Vaccines save lives. They’re not perfect, but they’re a good bet better than the damage that can and is done by so-called benign diseases that today’s generation of parents have never seen, for the most part.

Here are some good links for vaccination information:

• A Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Vaccines
• The Importance of Childhood Immunizations
• Why immunize?
• Risks of Not Vaccinating
• Why do pre-teens and adolescents need immunizations?
• Additives in vaccines
• 10 things you need to know about immunizations
• Immunity types
• Immunization life-cycle
• ABCs of childhood immunizations
• Which vaccines do pre-teens/adolescents need?

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Image: Newscom.com