New Combo Vaccines for Kids

New combination vaccines for infants and toddlers approved Thursday by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will soon appear in doctors’ offices in Chicago and across the country.

And parents are sure to have a lot of questions.

Moms and dads will want to know if giving babies a single shot containing protection against four or five infections could be dangerous. Might it overwhelm an infant's immune system and are adverse side effects more likely?

Don’t worry, says Dr. Tina Tan, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

The new vaccines are as safe and effective as individual vaccines already on the market, she adds, and combining existing immunizations into a single shot doesn’t raise the risk of harm.

“It’s not going to overload your infants’ immune system,” the physician says.

“If you think about what you or I or a baby is exposed to every day in the environment, you are being challenged by more antigens [proteins] than you get through these vaccines,” Tan explains.

But others are concerned.

“There are too many unknowns here; I’d like to see more research on the effects of combining so many vaccines at once,” said Anne Dachel, a member of the board of Advocates for Children’s Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning.

She and others suspect a link between thimerosal – a mercury-based preservative once used in vaccines -- and autism. More than 99 percent of vaccines no longer use the preservative.
But medical experts say research doesn’t support that suspicion.

“When you look at the science, there’s no evidence that there is any connection,” says Tan, who tells anxious parents that the illnesses they’re guarding babies against are a much more considerable threat.

The benefit of the new combination vaccines is a reduction in the number of shots babies get. Instead of four or five shots per visit at the age of 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, and 15 to 18 months, infants will now endure one or two needle sticks.

My Tribune colleague and fellow blogger, Julie Deardorff, notes today that many parents are alarmed by the sheer number of immunizations kids are now asked to get.

"In 1982, The Centers for Disease Control recommended 23 doses of 7 vaccines for children up to age 6," she writes. "Today, the CDC recommends that children get 48 doses of 12 vaccines by age 6." With flu shots, the total expands to 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.

Pentacel, manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, protects again five infections at the same time (diopththeria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and Haemophilus influenza type B) and was tested on more than 5,000 children.

Kinrix, made by GlaxoSmith Kline, protects against four infections (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and polio).

Both vaccines were approved Thursday by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy.