One-third of US parents plan to avoid influenza vaccines for their children this season

Thirty-four percent of American parents said their child would probably not be vaccinated against the flu this year, according to a report released Monday by C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.

The online survey, which took place in October, looked at 1,977 parents with at least one child who wanted to know if parents would get the flu shot and their reasoning, among other things.

Of the parents surveyed, 48% said that they generally followed the recommendations of their child's health care provider when making choices about the flu shot.

However, 21% of those surveyed did not recall that their health care provider had recommended that they receive the influenza vaccine.

"For me, the biggest benefit to remember is that there is a group of parents who seem to have a gap in expert advice as to whether children should receive the flu shot, especially if their child needs to be vaccinated against the flu, "said Sarah Clark, co-director of the National Children's Health Survey of CS Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan.

Parents who chose to vaccinate their child reported hearing more positive comments than negative comments, with a margin of about 4 to 1, while those who chose not to vaccinate their children heard many more negative comments, Clark said.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 179 children have died and hundreds have been hospitalized because of influenza-related illnesses. The CDC also reported that 80% of the dead children were not vaccinated.

According to the CDC, 57.9% of children aged 6 months to 17 years had received the flu vaccine during the last influenza season, less than the previous year. Approximately 155.3 million doses of influenza vaccine were distributed to people of all ages last season.

"We are not giving the influenza vaccine the merit it deserves," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

"The vaccine is not perfect, none of us believe it, but it's the best thing to do to prevent the flu – even if it does not completely prevent the disease." , which is very important, it tends to mitigate it., "said Schaffner, who has not been involved in the new report.

Among the reasons given by parents for not vaccinating their children include being too busy and not receiving harsh recommendations from their health care providers, according to Schaffner.

According to the survey, the top three reasons given by parents for not vaccinating their children were, according to Clark, their concerns about side effects, that it was not working very well and that their currently healthy child was not going to get vaccinated. did not need to be vaccinated. .