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Ava Harmon: The Trump administration is suggesting changes to childhood vaccinations, but local public officials say no official changes to vaccine schedules have been made. The suggestions have left some Michigan parents confused on what to do as the school year begins.
To clear up any questions, WCMU's Tina Sawyer recently talked with Dr. Jennifer Morse from the Central Michigan District Health Department.
Dr. Morse starts by reassuring parents that the status quo is intact when it comes to getting shots.
Dr. Jennifer Morse: Nothing has changed with our vaccines. There's no new vaccines. There's no new science for vaccine safety. Scientists and physicians still trust vaccines.
We still vaccinate our own children, so we really just encourage citizens to talk with their health care providers because the governmental agencies that used to make vaccine recommendations has really just been dismantled.
Tina Sawyer: Sending our kids back to school, there are some requirements. So, to be clear, the state handles entry requirements for school-aged children, is that correct?
JM: Correct.
TS: And what are those mandates? Can you kind of give us a guideline on that?
JM: The main ones are measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B.
Your healthcare provider and your school and the health department will know those.
If there's anyone that your child can't get or you don't want them to get, the health department now provides non-medical waivers remotely, so you can just go onto the health department website to do those.
TS: And they still can go to school, right?
JM: Yes, yes.
If they have a medical reason to not get vaccinated, which would mainly be an allergy to a vaccine or something, your healthcare provider can do that.
But it's more, you know, if you choose not to vaccinate, we really encourage you to vaccinate though.
We're seeing more chickenpox, obviously measles is a big concern.
And we're seeing kids miss school, parents missing work, they have to stay home with their kids. And if there's outbreaks and kids aren't vaccinated, the way we stop those outbreaks is to keep kids home from school for three or more weeks until the outbreaks end.
TS: I just read too that as of late this month here, the United States confirming over 2,700 and across 47 jurisdictions of measles, that's marking the highest annual total in 35 years.
Is this because children are not getting vaccinated or is that just for the overall population not getting vaccinated?
JM: The majority of those cases are children and almost all of them have been unvaccinated. And so, and most of those cases are being spread within the United States.
So it's likely we're going to lose our status not having measles. We're very likely going to lose that designation.
So that means basically any time you travel within our country, you could become exposed to measles and that can be deadly.
TS: So the MMR vaccine, is that just one recommendation by the current administration is to separate it into three separate injections and on three separate visits.
But right now, they're still together in that one vaccine, correct?
JM: Yes, and there is no vaccine in the world available that splits those into separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines.
So that is not even possible and there's no safety benefit to splitting those apart.
To answer your question, that is a two dose series. They just have to be separated by at least four weeks and the first dose has to be given at least at the age of one year or older.
TS: Teens entering college, they're also recommended to get some boosters too. Can you explain that?
JM: Usually kiddos are up to date, and I say kiddos, young adults are usually up to date when they enter college.
But if they've not yet gotten their meningitis vaccines, or again, need to get their MMR vaccines, pertussis, which is whooping cough vaccines, anything like that is still really great to get.
I've not yet mentioned it, but for college age kids, and for high school and daycare kids, getting a yearly flu shot is important.
Every year we have a school closed, at least one, usually several schools closed due to the flu outbreaks, but we see kids die every year from influenza and at least half of them have absolutely no pre-existing health problem.
Those vaccines should be starting around October.
AH: That was Dr. Jennifer Morse with the Central Michigan District Health Department talking with WCMU's Tina Sawyer.
