The American Academy of Pediatrics is backing a new law that went into effect in July requiring all California students be vaccinated before going to school.
The Academy officially backed the law Monday, urging the government and doctors to take a firm approach to ensuring parents vaccinate their children.
"Despite our best efforts to educate parents about the effectiveness of vaccines and the realistic chances of vaccine-associated adverse events, some will decline to have their children vaccinated," the Academy said in the new policy statement. "This often results from families misinterpreting or misunderstanding information presented by the media and on unmonitored and biased Web sites, causing substantial and often unrealistic fears."
The Academy reported that almost 75 percent of pediatricians had to deal with a parent who refused to vaccinate their child in a 12-month period.
In a 2011 survey, 17 percent of parents refused all vaccines while 53 refused some vaccines.
The AAP recommended pediatricians dealing with parents who refuse to vaccinate should, in a word, keep at it.
If parents refused to vaccinate, "the AAP also recommends that you revisit the immunization discussion at each subsequent appointment and carefully document the discussion, including the benefits to each immunization and the risk of not being age-appropriately immunized," the policy statement read.
