Vaccines and Your Child: Separating Fact from Fiction

Paul A. Offit, M.D., and Charlotte A. Moser, leading advocates for modern vaccines, answer parents' numerous questions about the underlying science of modern vaccines and the value of childhood immunization, while forthrightly addressing parents' concerns about vaccine safety. In straightforward prose, the authors explain how vaccines work, how they are made, what goes into their making, as well as vaccines' real risks, balanced against the danger of childhood infectious diseases and the threat of diseases that have reemerged due to declining childhood vaccination rates.

Offit and Moser address parental fears that children may receive too many vaccines too early. They consider the evidence that the HPV vaccine may cause chronic fatigue or other dangerous side effects, and they lay to rest any worries that additives and preservatives in vaccines cause autism. The authors warn against complacency and a false sense of security or the notion that a disease is too remote to do a child serious harm. There couldn't be a better moment& mdash;or a more pressing need& mdash;for a book that offers honesty, not hype, about protecting children's health.