ages for childhood immunizations :: Article CreatorVaccines Protect Your Children And Others, Too
A COVID-19 vaccination event for adults and children offered through Richmond and Henrico Health Districts at Fairfield Middle School in Henrico County, Va, November 13, 2021. (Parker Michels-Boyce for The Virginia Mercury)
Parents in Virginia who don't vaccinate their young children, a percentage that's grown over the past decade, are making a risky bet with their kids' health – and maybe even their lives.
It's a dangerous trend, perhaps attributable to the bleats of vaccine deniers who elevate misinformation, emotion and quackery over science.
Some adults may be unaware of past scourges where children frequently became ill before vaccines were available. Many decades ago, polio sufferers had to depend on metal apparatuses called iron lungs just to help them breathe. Today, because of vaccines, polio is nearly eradicated worldwide, and iron lungs are primarily an eerie part of my youthful subconscious.
Vaccines work. More Americans should know that fact. Refusal of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, often along partisan lines, makes the current challenge tougher.
Axios Richmond recently noted the number of parents in Virginia now opting out of getting their children vaccinated. It reported the percentage of kindergartners with vaccine exemptions has quadrupled over the past 10 years.
CDC statistics show 2.4%, or about 2,050 children out of 85,374 kindergartners in the commonwealth, had either medical or nonmedical vaccine exemptions in the 2023-24 school year. In 2014, that figure was 0.6%. (Nonmedical exemptions often involve religious reasons, though I suspect parents often cite them merely to refuse the injections.)
Virginia's rate of exemptions was still below the national average of 3.3%, Axios reported. Parents nationwide also overwhelmingly support childhood vaccinations, according to the Pew Research Center.
Those positive facts could be altered, however, because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is set to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President-elect Donald Trump. Kennedy is a prominent anti-vaxxer and has been criticized as a "denier of science."
It's another example of Trump using his picks to undermine the health and safety of everyday Americans, while at the same time awarding his sycophants.
Vaccine refusal disturbs epidemiologists like Carrie Dolan, an associate professor of kinesiology and public health at the College of William & Mary. She said the benefits of vaccines far, far outweigh the risks.
"They're effective," Dolan told me. "They're safe. They're reliable."
When people aren't vaccinated, she added, the chance for an infected person to spread a contagious disease to someone else increases. Getting a little wonky – at least for me – Dolan explained something called an "R0," or basic reproduction number.
Measles has an R0 of 12 to 18, meaning one infected person could spread it to up to 18 others in an unvaccinated population, she said.
"Before the vaccine, measles caused widespread outbreaks, often leading to complications like pneumonia and, in rare cases, brain swelling," Dolan said by email. "Thanks to vaccination programs, measles cases have been drastically reduced worldwide. However, when vaccination rates drop, outbreaks can quickly return."
Whooping cough, or pertussis, has an R0 of 12–17 and is especially dangerous for infants, who can have severe coughing fits that make breathing difficult. "Vaccination has greatly reduced the risk," she said, but without it, "this disease could spread more easily, putting vulnerable groups like babies and the elderly at greater risk."
Vaccinations also help protect children who, paradoxically, can't take them.
Dr. John Harrington, a general pediatrician at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, told me that young oncology patients chronically on steroids are "unlikely to mount a response" to certain vaccines. In those instances, vaccines could be harmful.
Dr. John Harrington, general pediatrician at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, said vaccine-hesitant parents are often willing to listen to their doctors' advice about whether to get their children vaccinated. (Photo courtesy of CHKD)
"The assumption is if everybody else is vaccinated, that protects" children with serious health problems, Harrington said. (This is also another way to define herd immunity.)
Vaccine-hesitant parents tend to have heard or seen things on the internet or social media that influence their thinking, he said. Many, though, are willing to listen to their pediatricians or primary care physicians about the issue.
Besides, vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective, even if the total risk can't be ruled out. Children are more likely to be protected, though, from diseases than if they hadn't gotten the shots, Harrington said.
"These viruses have not gone anywhere. They can resurface when vaccination rates decline."
– Erica Hunter, immunization data and outreach manager in the Virginia Department of Health
Erica Hunter, immunization data and outreach manager in the Virginia Department of Health, told me the recent trends on refusing vaccines for young children "certainly raise concerns."
"Most Virginians do vaccinate their children," Hunter said, adding she had no information on what role vaccine denialism might have in contributing to the statistics. "We just try to provide the best and most accurate information we can."
She noted the state's Vaccines for Children program provides free immunizations and has done so for decades. "These viruses have not gone anywhere," Hunter said. "They can resurface when vaccination rates decline."
Non-COVID outbreaks have occurred in Virginia from time to time. For example, since June 2022, 41 confirmed cases of meningococcal disease associated with an outbreak of a specific bacterium have occurred. It killed eight people of all ages.
Nationwide, 283 measles cases were reported this year through Dec. 5, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Virginia had one reported case. Some 89% of the total cases were listed as unvaccinated or unknown.
Not vaccinating children exasperates Dolan, the Willam & Mary epidemiologist. She helps run an immunization project in Kenya, and this summer, she had just 14 vaccines to fight HPV.
Some 300 girls sought the precious supply.
In America, she said, we forget how lucky we are to have access to vaccines. "It's been weaponized politically," Dolan noted.
Please vaccinate your children. Your actions will protect them and may help others, too.
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Assessing Claims About COVID Vaccine Doses For Infants
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to provide guidance toward COVID-19 vaccinations, listing recommended dosage levels for Americans of all ages. The CDC divides its COVID-19 vaccination recommendation based on four age groups: Children 6 months to 4 years old, children 5 to 11 years old, people ages 12 to 64, and people aged 65 or older.
Claims circulating on social media platforms assert the CDC recommends that 6-month-old infants receive seven doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. These claims are false. Although some social media posts include images of the CDC's COVID-19 vaccination guidance, users have misinterpreted the chart.
"The CDC says that little 6 month old babies must get SEVEN doses of the Covid Vaccine 💉 in order to be considered fully 'up to date' on their vaccinations," the X account "Died Suddenly" shared with its nearly 800,000 followers. "This isn't including the dozens of other vaccinations leading up to 6 months. Pure evil." The account is affiliated with the anti-vaccine movie Died Suddenly, which was released on Rumble in 2022, and is currently marketing "light-infused water" on its website. An image of the 2024-2025 CDC COVID-19 Immunization Schedule was included in the account's tweet. Another X account with nearly 250,000 followers, "Sudden and Unexpected,"—and which also includes the hashtag "Died Suddenly" in its X profile—tweeted the same claim and image, verbatim.
"According to the CDC," tweeted the X account, "The General," to its more than 100,000 followers, "6-month-old babies need seven doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to be considered fully 'up to date' on their vaccinations." Another X user tweeted the CDC immunization schedule, claiming, "They are murdering our children."
The CDC's 2024-2025 COVID-19 immunization schedule—the chart included in social media posts making the false claims—does not suggest infants receive anywhere near seven doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
For the age group ranging between 6 months and 4 years old, the CDC breaks down its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations based on prior dosages received. If the child has not yet received any COVID-19 vaccinations, then the CDC recommends three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech-manufactured vaccine or two doses of the Moderna-manufactured vaccine. Although the CDC offers varying dosage guidelines depending on the vaccine manufacturer, the federal agency has no stated preference between vaccine manufacturers. "There is no preference for one vaccine over the other when more than one vaccine is recommended for an age group," the CDC explains on its website.
For children in that age group who received fewer than the suggested level of doses, the CDC chart recommends additional dosages to meet its guidelines. For example, for children that received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech-manifactured vaccine, the CDC recommends two further doses. Likewise, children who received one shot of the Moderna-manufactured vaccine are recommended to receive one more. Notably, the only situation for which the CDC recommends children receive more than three doses are instances where all previous COVID immunizations occurred before 2024—in which case the CDC promotes one additional dose.
It is unclear where social media users came up with the "seven doses" claim—that number does not appear in the CDC's chart whatsoever. The Dispatch Fact Check has reached out to the CDC for comment.
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.Com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.Com.
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Model Enables The Study Of Age-Specific Responses To MRNA Vaccines In A Dish
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mRNA vaccines clearly saved lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, but several studies suggest that older people had a somewhat reduced immune response to the vaccines when compared with younger adults. Why? Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, led by Byron Brook, PhD, David Dowling, PhD, and Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, found some answers — while providing proof-of-concept of a new system that can model mRNA vaccine responses in a dish. This, in turn, could help expedite efforts to make vaccines even more effective.
The test system, called MEMPHIS (Modular Evaluation of immunogenicity using Multi-Platform Human In vitro Systems), analyzed whole human blood from people of different age groups. It applied both proteomics and targeted assays to measure the production of cytokines (immune signaling proteins) induced by mRNA vaccines.
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"We are excited to report, for the first time, an ability to model age-specific responses to mRNA vaccines outside the body," says Levy, who heads the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children's. "Our model gives us insight into vaccine activity in vulnerable populations."
Multi-pronged monitoring
As described in iScience, the team added the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID mRNA vaccine to blood samples from people in different age groups. Extensive tests, including systems biology approaches such as proteomics, then measured immune activation in response to the vaccine.
This approach identified muted innate immune responses in people over age 60 as compared with those age 18 to 50. In particular, older adults showed an impaired ability to support Th1 immunity, with diminished early inflammatory responses. They also had lower levels of four key cytokines (CXCL10, IL-1RA, IFN-gamma, and CCL4), biomarkers indicating a more robust immune response including T cell-mediated immunity.
"The early innate response to mRNA vaccines is critical in instructing the adaptive immune system, triggering maturation of CD4 T cells and supporting downstream cellular and antibody responses that are long-lived," explains Brook.
The lower initial response observed with advancing age, also seen in mice, may explain why immunity induced by mRNA and other types of vaccines may wane more quickly in older adults, the researchers say.
While mouse studies have been a gold standard for research, they are expensive, time-consuming, and don't always capture human immune biology accurately. The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, signed into law in 2022, now allows for alternatives to animal testing, including human cell and organoid models alongside systems biology approaches.
Levy emphasizes that their MEMPHIS test system, for which they've filed a patent, is an exemplar of this new approach. The system provides a nimbler way to predict age-specific human vaccine responses, allowing multiple vaccine doses and vaccine adjuvants — which boost the immune response — to be tested simultaneously in samples from the same person.
"If we could elicit a young-adult-like innate immune response in an elder, we might be able to provide better, more durable protection," says Brook.
Vaccine development for infants and elders
Brook and Levy now plan a similar study in newborn infants who have distinct immune systems and vaccine responses. They also want to use their assay to find blood biomarkers that predict which mRNA vaccine is most likely to be effective in a given population.
"We want to accelerate vaccine development using human in vitro systems and use this approach to select which vaccine and adjuvant may be best suited to each age group," says Levy. "While vaccines are safe and highly effective, we want to make sure people of all ages are optimally protected."
Reference: Brook B, Checkervarty AK, Barman S, et al. The BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine demonstrates reduced age-associated TH1 support in vitro and in vivo. IScience. 2024. Doi: 10.1016/j.Isci.2024.111055
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