Dr. Jill and Susan Hendricks discuss the recent decision by the state of Tennessee to stop vaccine outreach programs aimed at kids. -HKP
“As pediatricians our goal is to prevent illness and disease before it starts and vaccines are a highly effective and safe way that we can protect our patients.
The pandemic unfortunately set us back tremendously in our efforts to fully vaccinate children due to completely understandable hesitancy and fear by families and we are just starting to recover from that. So when we hear that a department of health is ordering a halt on routine vaccine reminders (and as in the case with Tennessee, notably, for kindergarteners and teens) it sets us back even further and creates more risk of serious infection and death.
In my personal experience, I know many well-informed families who don’t need anyone to remind them about vaccinating their children or coming in for scheduled well visits, but of course there are also many families who rely on the healthcare community to vaccinate their children on schedule and with the appropriate vaccines.
Eliminating these outreach programs in Tennessee is detrimental to all the hard work of pediatricians in that state who advocate for children on a daily basis. “
-Dr. Jill Garripoli Pedalino