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| |    Spock on Immunizations by Dr. Benjamin Spock reviewed and revised by Lynn Cates, M.D., F.A.A.P. I grew up in a time when every parent was worried sick about their child contracting polio, a paralytic virus. This illness killed about 25,000 people, mostly children, each year. We were warned not to drink from drinking fountains, to avoid crowds in the summer, and to fret about every viral infection. But no more. There has not been a naturally occurring case of polio in the United States since 1979. The rest of the world is a little behind us, but on the same track. Smallpox has been totally eradicated from our planet. A medical miracle The elimination of these illnesses is nothing less than a medical miracle, one of mankind?s proudest achievements, and it came to pass because of vaccines. Many vaccines are made from bacteria or viruses that have been killed or weakened so that they won't cause the disease itself but will still stimulate the body's immune system to be ready to fight the particular disease-causing virus or bacteria. After a child has been immunized with a vaccine his body makes antibodies to fight off that bacteria or virus if it should try to invade. Diseases are more dangerous than vaccines From time to time, some parents are alarmed and confused by stories in the newspapers and on television about a few children who have had bad reactions to a particular vaccine. Some of these parents then decide not to give their children any immunization for fear that it will make their child sicker than the disease would have. I think this is a mistake, because we know that in the vast majority of cases, the disease is much more dangerous to many more children than is the rare bad reaction to an immunization. If you hear a story that worries you, talk to your doctor or nurse practitioner. You also can find reliable sources of information in our article on immunization resources.
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