Close to Home: Take it from us, your doctors, vaccines are safe and effective

I am a board certified Santa Rosa pediatrician who believes that vaccines are safe and effective. And I am not the only one.

I reached out to my colleagues in the Sonoma County medical community - your family physicians, pediatricians, emergency room physicians, neonatologists, hospitalists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, mental health providers - and asked them if they would be willing to place their name next to a statement that vaccines are safe and effective. More than 200 of them responded. Each response was personal and sincere and consistent with our mission as physicians to do no harm. Here are a few of them:

Dr. Louis Menachoff, pediatrician: “I practiced in the pre-vaccine era and saw firsthand the disease and death caused by the diseases now preventable with vaccines. It saddens me to know there are parents who choose to return to those ‘good old days,' because they were not so good.”

Dr. Fred Brewer, pediatrician: “When I started my medical career in 1976, we would treat kids for diseases now prevented by vaccines. Some of those kids died, and many were damaged. We never see those kids anymore, because vaccines work.”

Dr. Gary Green, infectious diseases: “As physicians, we are responsible for protecting the most vulnerable and helpless in our society. Measles vaccine is exponentially safer than letting your child ride a bicycle, skateboard or play competitive sports.”

Dr. Paulomi Shah, medical director for California Children's Services, a supplemental state-funded insurance program that supports medically complex children: “I come from a country where vaccines were not available to everyone, and I know friends/grandparents who had paralytic polio. Vaccines save lives, and we have to do everything we can to educate our families. The 1,800 children of Sonoma County CCS are at the highest risk from complications from a vaccine-preventable illness. We all have a responsibility to protect those most vulnerable.”

Dr. Parker Duncan, family physician: “Declining vaccines for your child is a strong statement that you value your individual beliefs over the safety of not only your children but those of the rest of society. As a former Christian Scientist now family physician, I am well aware of the religious and cultural struggles over this issue; the irony being that religion is supposed to enforce the value of believing in something larger than oneself.”

Dr. Irene Baluyut, pediatrician: “My dad had polio as a child when vaccines were not available and survived with weakness and atrophy of his right leg. He told us how many of the children in their town had polio, and some died. I had mumps as a child, and I still remember how miserable I felt.

I have seen babies born with cataracts when their pregnant mothers had rubella. I have cared for children with tetanus who died from respiratory failure. I have seen young children die of pneumonia from measles. I have seen older children develop muscle weakness after measles from SSPE (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis) years after the family thought they had cleared the infection. I remember children with meningitis growing haemophilus or pneumococcus (infections) from lumbar puncture cultures. We could ‘smell' rotavirus the minute we stepped into the exam room for an infant hospitalized with severe diarrhea. I slowly saw these illnesses decrease because of vaccines.

It is sad and ironic that our patients have to suffer through these illnesses again because vaccines work and parents do not know how terrible these illnesses are and opt to ignore the science.”

Dr. Kari Foulke, family physician: “I have given my children all of their recommended childhood vaccines - which I consider my strongest endorsement. I hope that our medical community going forward can build trust and bridge divides to keep all of our children as healthy as possible.”

There is no debate within the medical community that vaccines are safer than the risks associated with vaccine preventable diseases, which can be fatal in the worst of cases. Yet Sonoma County has 4 of the 10 public schools in the state with the highest rates of students entering kindergarten with medical exemptions. The state average for medical exemptions is 1%, and these four schools have rates between 35% and 58%.

The reason for the alarmingly high percentage is because there are parents who refuse to vaccinate their children and are using a loophole to circumvent a state law requiring all children entering school to be vaccinated unless there is a qualifying medical reason to be exempt. State Sen. Richard Pan has introduced Senate Bill 276, which would require our public health department to review all vaccine medical exemptions and ensure that they are in keeping with medical standards governed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pan's bill cleared the Senate Health committee on Wednesday and still must pass the Senate and Assembly and be signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to take effect Jan. 1, 2021.

Statewide, 95% of our children are vaccinated. It's the remaining 5% who we need to educate in a compassionate manner that it is scientifically proven that vaccines are safe and effective.

To see more physician comments, go to the Sonoma County Medical Association website, nbcms.org/news-events/news.aspx

Dr. Brian Prystowsky is a pediatrician with Sutter Medical Group of the Redwoods. He lives in Santa Rosa.

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