Celebrate National Immunization Month with Accurate Information!

August in National Immunization Month and it just may boil down to a battle of the celebrities with Amanda Peet lending her voice and star power to the side of science and our current immunization schedule.

With Jenny McCarthy gaining more steam and creating more confusion, with all the internet misinformation, with the increase of immunization preventable illnesses such as Measles, we are at a true crisis point. It is honestly time to fight fire with fire. The immunization battle needs help and I hope Peet is not the last celebrity to stand up and say “I immunized my child and so should you!”.

Peet feels so strongly for the need for parents to immunize their children according to the current vaccine schedule that she has agreed to be on a panel scheduled for August 5 to help promote this very cause. McCarthy will be there, too.

Peet is speaking out because she also started off confused over whether to immunize her daughter but learned to trust the experts and data. As Peet told ABCNews:

“Many of our friends in Hollywood were choosing not to vaccinate their babies or to delay vaccines because they feared that they might cause autism or other disorders….We had never thought about not vaccinating, but when we went online to educate ourselves on vaccines, we found Web site after Web site warning us about their dangers. Naturally, we were very concerned about what we read.”

So, what did Peet do? She turned to experts – true experts such as Dr. Paul Offit, Chief of Infectious Disease at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. That consult as well as consultations with her own pediatrician helped allay her concerns and convince her that immunizing her daughter according to the current vaccine schedule was the right thing to do for her daughter’s health.

While on August 5 she will be battling another very outspoken celebrity on the vaccine front, Jenny McCarthy, Peet doesn’t believe parents should be listening to celebrities. As she told ABC News:

“I don’t think parents should be taking medical advice from actors….I take medical advice from several pediatricians, other doctors, the CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

Dr. Offit agrees and was quoted saying: “[Peet] says, ‘I’m not a scientist; you shouldn’t even be listening to me,’ which is refreshing”.

The discussion on August 5 will be interesting. And, while star power was needed to be brought in to battle star power parents need to recognize that the true experts are the scientists doing the research and the doctors who know how to interpret that research. Listen to the true experts – not the ones with the pretty smile and great clothes!

For more information on immunizations, click here.

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