Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The wife and mother from Sleepy Eye shared her story of heartache and tragedy Monday at the National Infant Immunization Week event at CentraCare Health Plaza in St. Cloud.
“A life-changing event — one involving your children — will make any parent regret what they could’ve done,” said Peterson, who held her daughter when she died in 2001 from a vaccine-preventable disease.
National Infant Immunization Week began Saturday. The annual observance highlights the importance of protecting infants from diseases that can be prevented with vaccines, such as polio, pertussis, chicken pox or measles.
“I compare them to seat belts; with a seat belt, you really don’t need it until it’s too late to put it on,” said Dr. Thomas Schrup, pediatrician and associate medical director of CentraCare Clinic.
Joint effort
Minnesota Department of Health officials joined local pediatricians and parents at Monday’s news conference at CentraCare Health Plaza to stress the importance of infant immunizations.
“Today in Minnesota — and also here in Central Minnesota — we have stagnating immunization rates,” said Dr. Marilyn Peitso, chief of pediatrics at CentraCare Clinic and president of the Minnesota chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
MDH and its immunization partners will take extra steps to provide information to health care providers and parents to help them discuss vaccines during National Infant Immunization Week.
For example, a special edition of an immunization clinic newsletter and a special NIIW page on the MDH website will offer helpful checklists and lists of resources for providers and parents. An NIIW message will run on the Minnesota Twins scoreboard at home games until Saturday. And special Twitter and Facebook messages will be sent.
“Vaccines are among the most successful and cost-effective public health tools available for preventing disease and death,” Peitso said.
To encourage vaccination, MDH and its partners are using a variety of means to inform the public that autism is not caused by vaccines, that vaccines are safe and effective and that vaccination help is available for low-income Minnesotans.
“We also live in an era where there is a tremendous amount of information available and much of it is inaccurate. The reality is everything we do in life has some risk. Vaccines have risks. But what we have to do is compare them to the risk of the disease, itself,” Schrup said.
“Some of the illnesses that we can prevent by vaccination are very difficult or impossible to treat once they’ve gotten started, so we really need to prevent them in the first place.”
Kris Ehresmann is director of infectious disease epidemiology, prevention and control for the Minnesota Department of Health. She was also at Monday’s event in St. Cloud.
“I think our most recent measles outbreak that we are currently experiencing, here, in Minnesota really highlights what can happen if we have unprotected children,” Ehresmann said.
Dr. Jon Dennis of CentraCare Clinic said the measles outbreak among the Somali population in the Twin Cities underscored the importance of getting the message out about the importance of immunizations despite cultural barriers.
“Because of the cultural traditions, they communicate verbally, so they will communicate among themselves, but they don’t have a lot of outside information ... such as from mainstream media,” said Dennis, who specializes in adolescent medicine.
Parent testimony
Parents like Jaime Wills of Monticello, whose 12-year-old son Isaiah was born prematurely, shared her story at Monday’s event. Because of the vaccinations he received at 2 months old, he was able to survive a case of bacterial meningitis, she said.
“What I am told was that if he wouldn’t have had that vaccine two weeks earlier that he probably would not have made it,” Wills said at Monday’s event at CentraCare Health Plaza.
About 20 cases of measles to date have been reported since March, the largest number of cases in the state since 1991, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
“One factor that seems to be affecting immunization rates is that parents, today, do not have experience with the diseases that vaccines prevent, so they underestimate the consequences of not vaccinating their children,” Peitso said.
The immunization rate for children in Minnesota is about 82 percent, but the goal is to reach 90 percent by 2020, according to Peitso.
“We also know there are pockets around the state where there are even higher rates of unimmunized children, and that leaves young infants and children vulnerable to potentially serious diseases,” Peitso said of the measles outbreak among Somali in the Twin Cities.
Parents whose children suffered from vaccine-preventable diseases shared their experiences at Monday’s meeting for the media.
“Parents trust other parents when it comes to health information; people naturally trust their peers, so we want parents to hear from other parents,” Peitso said.
Peterson received applause for sharing her tearful testimony at Monday’s event. The room was silent as she haltingly read a prepared statement.
“When our children were born, my husband and I were adamant about vaccinating our children. ... At that time, we had a pediatrician who did not push vaccines and did not recommend the most recent vaccines available,” she said of her daughter’s death.
“I now understand the importance of vaccinations and how children’s lives depend on them. I’m asking all parents to make sure all kids are kept healthy and to vaccinate your children.”
More information about infant immunizations can be found at www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/immunize/niiw.html.