With all the media attention drawn to the controversy about autism and immunizations, we want you to have the very best information available. So much of what is published or on the internet is extremely frightening, and very little is based on legitimate research. We are very sensitive to the issues as both parents and physicians and want you to be able to make the best decision possible based on the best information available. The hot topic of vaccines & autism is discussed beautifully in an AAP statement for parents. See the following link for an excellent summary. We welcome your questions and your concerns, so please ask if you have further questions. See our section on for Medical Information and Education for even more information.

Parents wanting to alter their infant's vaccine schedule should know that monovalent, or "individual virus" vaccines are no longer available for measles, mumps and rubella. Merck, the manufacturer of MMR and the individual vaccine components will no longer be producing them. We agree with Merck's decision, as there is absolutely no credible link between MMR and autism. Spreading this vaccine into three components triples the number of injections and therefore the pain associated with them. It also leaves children vulnerable to potentially deadly diseases for longer.

Sounds like a B-grade Hollywood thriller. But this is supposedly a true story as told by actress Jenny McCarthy, author of the best seller, "Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism." When I heard Ms. McCarthy tell Oprah and Larry King that vaccines caused her son's autism, I had a flashback to a cold winter's night, 13 years ago. I was the senior pediatric resident on call in the Intensive Care Unit. Cradled in the arms of her parents, a seven year-old girl was brought to the emergency room at Children's Hospital Boston. The girl had come down with chickenpox a few days earlier -- she had a fever and hundreds of itchy skin lesions. That night, she had taken a turn for the worse. Her fever shot up to 106 and she became confused and lethargic. She was unresponsive and limp in her mother's arms. The ER doctors suspected that her open sores allowed Strep bacteria to get under her skin and rage through her bloodstream. Now she was in "multiple system organ failure" -- every square inch of her body was shutting down all at once. IVs were placed into her veins to start fluids, antibiotics and medications to stabilize her heart and blood pressure. She was placed on a ventilator machine to breathe. Then she was brought to the Intensive Care Unit. By the time I met my patient, she had tubes coming out of every opening and weeping skin lesions all over her body. I was used to blood and gore, but it was hard to look at her and not cry. Imagine how her parents felt when they saw their once-beautiful little girl in this grotesque state, struggling to survive. My attending physician told me to grab dinner. This child would need me for the rest of the night. I returned to the ICU to find that my patient had gone into cardiac arrest and died. I watched, helplessly, as the nurses placed the little girl into a body bag.

Fast forward five months: The first chickenpox vaccine was approved. That day, I vowed never to let a child on my watch suffer from a disease that was preventable by vaccination.