In their 2011 book, Vaccine Safety and Your Child: Separating Fact from Fiction, Dr. Paul A. Offit and Charlotte Moser explained how vaccines are made, how they are tested, and how they work all while taking into consideration the fact that some parents may be hesitant to have their children vaccinated although these hesitations are unfounded. Focused on science, not hype, this guide emphasizes the safety of modern vaccines and moves through the many controversial topics surrounding inoculation. The guide individually describes concerns parents may have or may have heard about outcomes of vaccinations (ie. chronic disease, autism, cancer, etc), explains where these claims surfaced in a historical context, and discounts them referencing specific research. They have now published a shortened, easily-accessible booklet based on that publication.
Dr. Offit s Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine has just been published, and similarly to the earlier work has been well received by the scientific community. Dr. Offit, an ACSH Trustee, hopes that after reading these guides, parents will be reassured that getting their babies vaccinated is one more way of loving them.
Dr. Offit advises, There s no such thing as alternative medicine. There s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn t.
As ACSH has said many times, vaccines are safe and necessary to protect your children and your family from the devastating effects these preventable diseases can have. We highly recommend checking out these publications. Also see ACSH s classic publication, The Promise of Vaccines: The Science and the Controversy.