Too Few U.S. Adults Getting Needed Vaccinations

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, January 23, 2008; 5:00 PM

Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Vaccinations aren't only for children, adults need them, too. But too few adults are getting the shots to protect them from a range of dangerous diseases, U.S. heath officials said Wednesday.

"We need to get beyond the mentality that vaccines are for kids -- vaccines are for everybody," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a teleconference. "Adults can benefit from vaccines. They can prevent serious illness and death. They can save money and help us stay healthy and at work and able to take care of our families."

Vaccinations are recommended to protect adults from chickenpox, diphtheria, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, human papillomavirus/cervical cancer, influenza, measles, meningococcal disease, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), pneumococcal disease (pneumonia), rubella, shingles and tetanus, according to the CDC.

"Combined, these infectious diseases kill more Americans annually than either breast cancer, HIV/AIDS or traffic accidents," Dr. William Schaffner, vice president of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and chairman of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine's Department of Preventive Medicine, said in a prepared statement.

"A concerted effort is needed to raise adult immunization rates," Schaffner said. "The important thing to remember is that deaths and illness associated with these infections are largely avoidable through vaccination."

But, the number of adults who've been immunized for these diseases is disappointingly low, Schuchat said.

Schuchat noted that the CDC's National Immunization Survey found that only 2.1 percent of adults 18 to 64 had been vaccinated against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough. And only 1.9 percent of people 60 and over had received the new vaccine for shingles, which typically strikes older adults and can cause a painful rash.

In addition, only about 10 percent of women 18 to 26 have received the new human papillomavirus to protect against cervical cancer, Schuchat said.