I am excited to be working in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health bloggers to get the word out about pre-teen vaccinations.
Did you know that while most infants and children get the vaccines they need, less than half of pre-teens and teens receive the vaccines specifically recommended for their age group? So, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants to provide parents with information about the vaccines that are recommended for their children entering their pre-teen or teen years.
As a pharmacist, I have talked to many parents about their concerns with vaccines. Vaccinations are a huge source of survival in many third world countries thus the benefits are well worth it. In recent years, many new and “improved” disease states have surfaced in the U.S. where the use of vaccines have been found to be successful in the suppression and eradication of disease. When making the decision to have your children vaccinated, it is important to read all of the facts, talk with your family physician or other healthcare providers, and weigh the risks vs. benefits.
Myself along with several other health bloggers want to help CDC get this important information out to moms. Here are the facts:
There are serious diseases that kids are at increased risk for as they approach the teen years such as meningitis, whooping cough, and human papillomavirus (also known as HPV, the virus that can lead to cervical cancer in women);
- Meningococcal infections are very serious and can result in long-term disability or even death
- Pertussis, also called whooping cough, is not just a childhood disease—many teens are diagnosed with it each year
- Certain strains of HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, can cause cervical pre-cancer and cancer—every year in the U.S., about 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and nearly 4,000 women die from this disease
There are three vaccines recommended specifically for kids at ages 11 or 12 to protect them from these diseases:
- Meningococcal vaccine, which protects against meningitis and its complications
- Tdap vaccine, which is a booster against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis
- HPV vaccine, which protects girls and women against the types of HPV that most commonly cause cervical cancer
Be sure to check out the CDC widget on the right hand side of this blog to get additional information about pre-teen vaccinations from other moms and healthcare organizations.
Don’t forget that it is recommended that all children from 6 months and older get the flu shot EVERY YEAR!! Even as a healthcare provider, I struggled with deciding to give my then two year old son the new H1N1 nasal vaccine last year. Finally I concluded that it is better to be prepared ahead of time than asking myself the “what if ?” question after the fact.
Finally, if you have any questions about the CDC’s recommendations for pre-teen immunization, they want to hear from you. Please feel free to email Jill Roark at JRoark@cdc.gov with any questions. Call 800-CDC-INFO or visit www.CDC.gov/vaccines for more information.
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