About.com Rating

Updated March 05, 2015.

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

The Bottom Line

Do Vaccines Cause That?! is essential reading for all pediatricians and any parents who are either not vaccinating their children or who are having second thoughts about the importance of vaccines and are overwhelmed by worries about vaccine side effects.



Pros

• a comprehensive guide to the vaccine safety debate
• will provide reassure to parents who are confused by misinformation about vaccine safety

• can educate health professionals who need more information about vaccines when questioned by parents
• includes vaccine safety studies that aren't controversial and often don't make it into the media

Cons

• gets rather technical at times, but that is hard to avoid with the material that is being covered
• could have included even more information on the anti-vaccine movement

Description

• Informs readers about how to find reliable information about vaccines
• Explains some of the tactics that some anti-vaccine proponents use to misinform people
• Highlights the consequences of not vaccinating your kids
• Includes everything you want to know about vaccine safety, including explanations of most available studies

Guide Review - Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns

Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns, by Martin G. Myers, MD and Diego Pineda, comes at a welcome time for most pediatricians, who see many parents getting caught in the middle of the vaccine debate.

You yourself want to do what is best for your child, but may be worried about media reports that seem to sensationalize the vaccine issue and make it seem like there is much more controversy about vaccine safety than there really is.

Have you seen something on the news lately about vaccines? Then 90% of it was likely about a "possible" link between vaccines and autism, thimerosal (mercury), or some other theory about why vaccines are bad for children, even though most public health experts agree that vaccines are safe.

Do Vaccines Cause That?! will help you cut through all of the vaccine misinformation you may catch on TV, or read in books or on the Internet.

Myers and Pineda do a great job of busting the claims made by anti-vaccine proponents, showing how some of their experts misinform the public. It also basically explains the whole vaccine system, from VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) and the Vaccine Safety Datalink, to how vaccine safety studies are done.

Do vaccines cause autism, asthma, or SIDS, or do they overwhelm a baby's immune system? Not only does Do Vaccines Cause That?! give a clear answer to these questions, it backs them up with studies that should reassure you that vaccines are indeed safe.