January 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 1
New immunization schedule gets approval
Want the latest advice on immunizing your young patients? The 2000 Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule has been approved by the AAFP, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
"The year 2000 may go down as the year vaccine safety was much improved," said Richard Zimmerman, M.D., M.P.H., of Pittsburgh, Pa., a member of the AAFP Commission on Clinical Policies and Research.
The new schedule features several changes, he says, including three resulting from safety concerns:
- The rotavirus vaccine was removed from the schedule in response to several studies that suggest a possible increased rate of intussusception among infants who have received rotavirus immunization.
- Whole-cell pertussis vaccine is no longer identified as an acceptable alternative to acellular pertussis vaccine. Acellular pertussis vaccines offer superior safety profiles for both local and systemic reactions, compared to whole-cell pertussis vaccine.
- An all-inactivated polio vaccine is recommended in place of the IPV/oral vaccine series previously included in the schedule. The change is intended to eliminate the risk of vaccine-associated paralytic polio.
Other additions to the 2000 immunization schedule are recommendations that children be immunized against hepatitis A in certain states or regions, and a footnote explaining that additional vaccines may be licensed and recommended throughout the year.
"About every year or two for a while, there's going to be a new vaccine," Zimmerman said, adding that a conjugate pneumococcal vaccine for infants and children likely will be licensed in the spring.
You can get a copy of the new immunization schedule by visiting the AAFP's Web site at www.aafp.org/x7666.xml, using the AAFP Express document-by-fax system, or calling the AAFP order department at (800) 944-0000 and requesting item #R974.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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