Table 8.

Common misconceptions about childhood vaccination.

Misconceptions about Childhood Vaccination	Evidence from the Literature
Natural Immunity is Better than Vaccine-Acquired Immunity	Some vaccine-hesitant parents claim that natural immunity is better than immunity induced by vaccines, which they believe are “toxins”. Other vaccine-hesitant parents claim that most vaccine-preventable diseases are harmless to most children in the U.S. today, and natural exposure provides more long-lasting immunity [19,22,25,76,84,95,105].
Too Many Immunizations Overload the Immune System	Some vaccine-hesitant parents claim that vaccines “overwhelm” the immune system and that the childhood vaccine schedule involves too many vaccines, too soon. There is a belief that in following the recommended vaccine schedule for children, the immune system becomes “overwhelmed” and this leads to autism and an assortment of chronic health conditions [19,22,25,49,65,79,84,85,91,105].
Vaccines Contain Harmful Ingredients and Cause Serious Side Effects	Some vaccine-hesitant parents often state that vaccines are more dangerous than the infectious diseases that vaccines prevent. Vaccine-hesitant parents believe strongly that the toxins in vaccines can lead to an assortment of chronic health conditions that are more dangerous than vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) [23,25,26,77].
Many of the Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Are Uncommon in the United States Now	Until recently with the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., most parents today never had first-hand experience with infectious disease outbreaks. Therefore, it has been cited that either the side effects of the vaccines themselves appear more concerning than the diseases that the vaccines prevent, or parents believe vaccines are not needed [19,23,85].
There Are Alternatives to Vaccines	Some vaccine-hesitant parents believe that there are alternative to vaccines that are more effective and safer than vaccines for protecting children’s health. Vaccine-hesitant parents may seek counseling and information from alternative medicine practitioners such as homeopaths and naturopaths to justify alternative to vaccines [49,69,76,85,91].
Pharmaceutical Companies and Medical Science are not Trustworthy	Some vaccine-hesitant parents believe that pharmaceutical companies are using vaccines as a tool to profit without consideration of the harm to children. Some parents also have distrust in the medical science behind vaccines and believe that the research on vaccines is outdated and inaccurate and vaccines have not been tested properly and therefore are not safe [22,24,27,82,86].
Vaccines Cause Autism	A significant number of vaccine-hesitant parents believe, or are uncertain, about the scientifically unproven link between vaccines and autism. [18,26,82,89,93,97].