Not Vaccinating Your Child?  Be Aware of the Risks.

Vaccines work to protect infants, children and adults from illnesses and death caused by infectious diseases. They are an important safeguard against many serious diseases.

Immunizations, like any medication, can cause side effects. However, not immunizing a child can put a child and others who come into contact with him or her at risk of getting a disease that could be dangerous or deadly.

Take measles as an example:

• One out of 30 children with measles gets pneumonia
• For every 1,000 children who get the disease, one or two will die from it
• Because of vaccines, we have very few cases of measles in the U.S. today
• However, the disease is extremely contagious and each year dozens of cases are imported from abroad into the U.S., threatening the health of people who have not been vaccinated