Study: Most doctors allow vaccination delays

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published 2 March 2015

A new survey published in the journal Pediatrics found that a majority of doctors will agree to parents' requests to delay their children's vaccinations.

Ninety-three percent of the 534 primary care doctors surveyed said that they were asked to postpone vaccinations by at least one parent a month. One-third of doctors said they "often" or "always" agreed to the delays, and another third said they "sometimes" agreed to delay vaccinations, even though the delay would increase children's risk of developing measles and other illnesses.

"It is sad that we are willing to let children walk out of our offices vulnerable to potentially fatal infections," Dr. Paul A. Offit, a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told The New York Times. "There's a fatigue here, and there's a kind of learned helplessness."