Frederik Joelving
Reuters
05/10/2010
Parents can rest assured that getting kids their vaccine shots on time will not hurt their mental skills later on, doctors said on Monday.
“A lot of parents are concerned that children receive too many vaccines too soon,” said Dr. Michael J. Smith, of the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky. Some parents skip recommended vaccines out of fear of autism, for instance, and some choose to space out shots.
Although there is no evidence that would be safer, Smith said, he wanted to study the issue to address parents’ concerns. So he and a colleague tapped into data from more than 1,000 preteen kids who had undergone extensive psychological tests of IQ, memory, attention, and language.
Then they divided the kids into those who had received all their shots on time in their first year of life and those who got them late, or only got some.