Terry Polevoy, MD
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Naturopathic med. students don't support full vaccination
Students surveyed had a 'general concern' about the safety of pediatric
vaccines
By Pam Harrison
TORONTO � Only a minority of students at the Canadian College of
Naturopathic Medicine here would recommend to parents that their
children receive the full complement of pediatric vaccines, according to
a University of Toronto-based study.
However, the majority of the same respondents would recommend children
receive partial vaccination.
Dr. Kumanan Wilson, an assistant professor of medicine at the University
of Toronto, and colleagues developed a survey in co-operation with the
naturopathic college. "Our primary objective was to determine the
willingness of students to recommend childhood vaccinations, specified
in the introduction of the survey as MMR, DPT, HIB and polio," Dr.
Wilson wrote in Vaccine, where the findings were published.
A total of 357 of 525 students enrolled in all four years of the
school's program completed the survey, of which 45 did not provide an
answer to the researchers' primary question on willingness to vaccinate
and were excluded from further analysis. The analysis thus was carried
out on answers provided by 312 students.
"The majority of the students were single females and they ranged in age
from 20 to 55 years, mean age, 27.4 years," researchers said.
"In response to the question, 'Based on your current knowledge, would
you advise your patients to have their children fully vaccinated?' only
12.8% responded, 'Yes, I would advise that they vaccinate them with all
recommended vaccines.' " Exactly the same proportion of respondents
indicated they would not advise parents to have their children receive
any of the recommended vaccines, while about 75% of respondents
indicated they would recommend children receive at least some of the
currently recommended pediatric vaccines.
In assessing students' perception of the benefits versus the risks of
vaccination, about 42% of respondents indicated they believed vaccines
to be "moderately or highly" beneficial.
On the other hand, more than 67% of the students indicated they believed
vaccines to be "highly or moderately risky," with only 16% of
respondents believing that vaccines were either "minimal risk" or "of no
risk."
In an interview, Dr. Wilson noted students were still "cautiously
supportive" of vaccination, but they were not accepting of the fact that
all pediatric vaccination should be mandatory. Researchers also detected
a "general concern" among the students about the safety of pediatric
vaccines and a lack of trust in public health.
"These attitudes are not being taught," Dr. Wilson stressed.
Nevertheless, they appeared to gather momentum as students progressed
through the program. Fourth-year students, for example, were less likely
to be in favour of vaccination than first-year students, he added.
"Concerns about the safety and benefit of vaccination among naturopathic
providers have the potential to erode parents' confidence in vaccines,"
researchers conclude, "and finding effective mechanisms to communicate
the benefits of vaccination to naturopathic providers during their
training is an important first step to prevent this from occurring."
Terry Polevoy, MD
938 King St. West
Kitchener, Ontario, N2G 1G4 Canada
519-725-2263 -- 725-4953 fax
www.healthwatcher.net - Consumer Health Watchdog
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