U.S.

For Some, Horrible Side Effects

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 9, 2000 / 8:04 PM EDT / CBS

Right now most children receive 33 doses of 10 different vaccines before they reach age 5 for everything from childhood diseases like chicken pox to adult diseases like hepatitis B, CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr reports.

And most every doctor you could talk to would agree that the fear and pain those needles cause in children — and in a good many adults as well — is worth it.

"More lives have been saved in this century because of vaccines than of any other medical intervention," said Dr. Mary Megson, a pediatrician with the Medical College of Virginia.

But are vaccines also carrying a serious health risk?

Paul and Linda Mullhauser believe so. They say their son Stephen, now 18, autistic and severely disabled, was a healthy baby until he received his second DPT shot.

"Within about two to three hours after the vaccine he began screaming a very high-pitched scream. It went on for, like, nine hours," Paul Mullhauser said.

This weekend the Mullhausers are joining hundreds of families raising questions about vaccines. They want to know why in the past 20 years childhood cases of asthma have jumped 100 percent, juvenile diabetes 200 percent and autism as much as 500 percent.

Even parents who claim that their children have been injured by vaccines are not calling for an end to all shots. But they are asking that the medical establishment acknowledge a risk and do something to reduce it.

To date, federal health studies show no proven link between vaccines and disabilities like autism, but even some doctors who support immunization believe there are children predisposed to disorders that might be triggered by vaccination.

"Remember: When you give a vaccine, you're injecting something into a healthy child. You better make darn sure we're not doing any harm with that intervention," Dr. Megson said.

Still, most physicians say the threat of an epidemic is a far greater danger.

"There is no reason that I have seen as a physician or as a scientist which will say let's stop the vaccine. That's not the answer because that will do a lot more damage," said Dr. Mohammad Akhter of the American Public Health Association.

That argument no longer works for the Mullhausers.

"If we don't continue to speak out then this will just disappear and it will not help our son and it will not help other children," said Linda Mullhauser.