AMARILLO, TEXAS -- It's an issue that more parents are wrestling with, vaccinations for their kids. It's an issue drawing strong reaction from the medical community, too.
But now, more parents are choosing to be more selective about which shots their kids should get.
That medical question has been under the microscope for years. Many doctors and nurses support the effectiveness of vaccinations for your child. But there's a growing number of parents who question their safety.
"My child had a vaccination when he was younger and he had a reaction. And I started doing some research and found that there was quite a link to the reaction that he was having to vaccinations," said Scott Latham, Against Vaccinating.
That reaction, he adds, was an unusual cry.
"He was a very happy child and after the vaccination he cried constantly and it wasn't for a week, it wasn't for a month, it was a permanent thing and he was totally a different child."
Today, his son is a health teenager, without medical issues.
Latham says that he feels a vaccination is each parent's personal decision.
But medical experts say that while they hear parents' concerns, they feel there is no scientific proof that vaccinations cause harm.
"My son has autism so I've done my research, I've looked into it and nothing has ever been proven scientifically that these vaccinations causes autism from what I know," said Dr. S. Caleb Kim, Family Medicine Center.
Dr. Kim says in the first year of life, a child will receive anywhere from 14 to 15 shots. Protecting against things like whooping cough, meningitis, chicken pox, and hepatitis.
"The purpose of vaccination is that we know there are certain illnesses that kids develop, some are life threatening such as meningitis and we know that by giving that vaccination what it does is it prevents those illnesses occuring in those kids sometimes even protecting them from death and sometimes it might not be death, but there are other complications that arise," said Dr. Kim.
There are several websites dedicated to research on vaccinations.
National Vaccine Information Center: www.nvic.org
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov
