Dear Patient Families of Corinth Family Medicine and Pediatrics,
It has recently come to our attention that there has been an influx over the past 12 months into our practice of multiple families who do not desire immunization for their children. We are worried about this growing trend and want to take a moment to explain why this is not safe.
Our providers are FOR routine childhood vaccinations; we are PRO vaccines. We believe that the present ability of many young parents to forgo vaccination for their children is partly due to the success of vaccines! In other words, no one has a grandparent or uncle who has limped all of their life due to the damage of polio or has a great aunt who is blind following measles, or a second cousin who died in infancy with diphtheria. Smallpox no longer ravishes 200 million lives across the world every few years in epidemics (with a 30% fatality rate) due to eradication with a worldwide vaccine. Thus, many individuals now think it’s a safe choice not to vaccinate.
In the early 1900s, 30% of all deaths in the United States occurred yearly in children less than 5 years old. In New York, 20% of all children died before the age of 5, most by age 2. Most of these deaths were due to prolonged diarrhea, dehydration, measles, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, smallpox, and scarlet fever. While it is a historical fact that most of these illnesses had declined by 20-60% between 1900 and 1940 due to improved childhood nutrition, improved sanitation (including treated water and pasteurized milk), and implementation of public health measures; thousands of children still died from these vaccine-preventable illness each year before the onset of vaccination.
Our practice has desired to honor parents by being flexible with the recommended childhood vaccine schedules. We have made accommodations such as reducing infant child vaccines to two at a time, waiting until age 2 for the 1st MMR vaccine, and not requiring catchup vaccines in children 2-3 years old for Haemophilus influenzae b vaccine, since its major illnesses occur almost exclusively in the first 2 years of life. We also spoke up about our reservations of the COVID-19 vaccine for children and chose not to recommend this vaccine. However, we are not comfortable with the option of no immunizations given to your children and feel that the recent influx of patient families choosing this now puts other patient families at risk.
Our practice, like the majority of all other local pediatric offices, is no longer accepting new patients who refuse all vaccines for their children. We are asking currently unvaccinated families to begin slowly [even if only 1-2 vaccines per year] vaccinating their children. In addition, we are informing all current patients who are choosing not to vaccinate, that beginning July 1, 2025, we will no longer be able to see them as patients. Please understand that we have made this decision with much research and expertise and sincerely have the best interest of all our patients in mind. Neither the CDC nor the Academy of Pediatrics is your child’s parent, you are. We want you to be comfortable with the decision made for your child. We are available to answer any questions you have regarding this change.
Sincerely,
Corinth Family Medicine and Pediatrics’ Providers and Leadership
