Why it's important to vaccinate children

Pediatrician Lawrence Kagan, MD, shares advice for parents on why it is so important to vaccinate your child in order to build your child's immune system and protect him or her from potentially deadly diseases
The Importance Of Having Your Child Vaccinated
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Why it's important to vaccinate children

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Absolutely, you should vaccinate your child. I think the vaccines have changed the face of medicine and has protected countless individuals from countless diseases. I don't think that vaccines deserve the bad rap that they have gotten. I think that we are seeing more and more today that those associations that we thought were real, aren't. That said, vaccines don't have to be delivered in the manner that the AAP, CDC, and WHO recommend. Those groups are very motivated to try and protect everyone. You may have a child that you see at two months and may not see again for many months. Yes, the right thing to do at that visit is to give them as many shots as you can to protect them from everything that you can. But in many communities, parents are quite reliable and you are not lost a follow-up. In my practice, we give one shot per visit. We prioritize the vaccines that the most fragile children need and what the most susceptible to. We procrastinate vaccines that I don't care if you get until later, I just want you to get as long as you are not traveling to an endemic area. In so doing, we give one shot per visit. I think it's more important to consider the psychological implications of giving multiple shots at a visit than to worry about the vaccine itself. Vaccines have been shown to be very safe and protect from disease, but I won't give more than one shot because I don't want to hold a child down for the second shot. That's just not fair.


Pediatrician Lawrence Kagan, MD, shares advice for parents on why it is so important to vaccinate your child in order to build your child's immune system and protect him or her from potentially deadly diseases

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Lawrence Kagan, MD

Pediatrician

Lawrence Kagan, MD, FAAP, is a UCLA honors graduate, with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. He received medical training at USC Keck School of Medicine, and completed his internship and residency in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In addition to passionately studying neonatal, general pediatric and adolescent medicine at CHLA, he had the opportunity to train under some of the greatest minds in subspecialty pediatrics, diagnosing and managing the rarest and most complicated childhood ailments. Prior to opening Westside Pediatrics, he worked as an attending physician at the CHLA Emergency Department as well as at Cedars Sinai Urgent Care. Dr. Kagan is a native of Los Angeles and is happily married with two children.

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