headlines all across the country. we'll take an in depth look at immunizations and whether it is the right decision to take the shot. there has been no scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism but it's also hard to prove that it doesn't and so i think there's a lingering in people who are choosing not to, a lingering doubt this and more in this edition of equal time the decision of immunizations starts with families. dustin dorsey takes us along with a bay area family to get their child immunized

this is christopher he is 8 months old today, his parents kayleigh cosimano and joey dale are on their way to get him vaccinated at the indian health center in san jose today in america, there is concern over vaccinations, especially in young babies this concern won't stop this young family from making sure their child is safe when cosimano was a child, she was vaccinated. she plans to follow in the similar path of her parents when it comes to her baby my parents thought that it was important to vaccinate me because it's protecting me from life threatening diseases. he'll get his pneumonia shot and his hepatitis b shot

christopher is receiving four different vaccines to protect him from several different diseases while he is showing a little pain fom the shots, his mother knows it is what is best for him it's only painful for a few seconds. he only cried for what? ten seconds and he was over it. to me, even though it hurt me emotionally but the hurt is only short term. feel like it's worth it because he s protected and he ll be around longer this seems like a straight forward process you go to the doctors and get your shots to stay healthy however, this has become a national debate that doesn t appear to have a sure fire right answer many parents have strong worries about what christopher's parents are doing to him. so why the worry?

i think that people think that vaccinations cause autism and i think that's the misinformed belief while these parents say this is the right choice, their feeling is not mutual. across the country and the world according to unicef, last year, well over twenty million children under a year old, like christopher, were not vaccinated while these parents may not be doing exactly what everyone else is doing, they say they believe they are doing the right thing for their child and others i've done my research on it as well so it's not just the values i was taught. so i don't want anything to happen to my child or something that i decided to happen to somebody else

when we return, we broaden our view on this debate and take it to the next generation of parents welcome back. why exactly do people believe what they do about vaccinations? dustin dorsey dives into the debate ith future mothers and fathers when asking the question whether its smart to vaccinate your children, you might start with the future generations of parents. you can find this generation on a college campus students, are at the point of their lives in which they will soon have to be educated enough to make decisions of their own. many will follow the path of their parents

some may stray off the path so will these future mothers and fathers have their families vaccinated? oh absolutely. absolutely i would. there are risks associated with vaccines, but the risks of getting a vaccine versus not getting vaccines are just unparalled honestly, i'm not sure yet. i have a lot of questions about vaccines myself. i'd like to actually, i haven't gotten around to it but i'd like to learn more about them and see if they really are required like manpreet many people aren't sure whether vaccines can harm children due to information that they hear in conversation or see in social media. a widely-distributed study linking vaccinations to autism has since been discredited and its author dr. andrew wakefield has lost his license

as for the link to autism, there is none. the guy that did that study, andrew wakefield, he did a study in 1998 basically saying there was a link between vaccines and autism. if you're getting your children vaccinated you're putting them at risk for autism, which is completely untrue jacqueline adams brother ryan lives with autism but she says she does not believe he developed the condition from a vaccine however, others are not convinced one of the chief concerns that anti-vaccination advocates have is that the high mercury levels in the vaccinations cause autism according to doctor lauren hidalgo, this is not proven and the vaccinations are necessary if you believe in the greater good society, it s kind of public obligation, i think, to get your vaccinations

doctor hidalgo is a physician at san jose state university she understands the importance of immunizations... as well as the hesitation of others against them i think for the most part the people that i've met or have read about tend to be worried about unknown risks risks such as autism from vaccinations along with endorsements from celebrities have given this debate life n the vaccination conversation, there will be two sides to the story believing they are right and sticking to their guns it all comes down to considering these risks and deciding how big of a risk it is for you still to come, we take our discussion to a panel of experts to help shed some light on the concerns over vaccines and answer some very tough questions. stay with us

welcome back to this edition of equal time from our brand new hd television studio in the school of journalism and mass communications at san jose state today we're talking about something timely, vaccinations the pros and the cons lets meet our guests i'm lauren hidalgo and i'm one of the physicians at the student health center here at san jose state as well as the co medical chief of staff i'm angela campbell and i'm a registered nurse i currently work in the field of genetics i'm kayleigh cosimano i am a stay at home mother to an 8 month old and my name is kelli dorsey and i am a former first grade teacher and i'm dustin dorsey and i'm the student correspondent on this story i want to thank you all for being here today. you know i thought and i think a lot of people out there watching

we thought the vaccination issue was long since decided in this country and yet now we're finding out in the news that there are many parts of the country, many parts of california many parts of our area that have uncertainties and questions why is that? doctor why is that? that's because we haven't really seen many of these diseases that we've been trying o prevent because it has it has been so much vaccinations that measles polio a lot of different things have never been seen by people who are currently parents and there is a people who have a conscientiousness is objections to a vaccinations which has grown quite large in places like marin county especially have a very high unvaccination rate and so i think perhaps people gotten bit complacent about vaccinations because of not seeing these diseases i was listening to a bay area radio and i was hearing about a story of a parent who did not want to have his son vaccinated

felt it was the responsibility of the school to protect his son and i was wondering how did that connection come about as a former teacher i suspect that seems a little challenging that is an interesting comment for example when the child is enrolled into the school and registered the parent gets to choose whether or not to vaccinate their child it's due to personal or religious beliefs and that's a misnomer to many parents and people out there they think it's a requirement to have your child vaccinated before school starts when in fact it's a choice by the parent at the school i was teaching at former formally 4% of the population is not vaccinated. four percent of that school and it's now public knowledge and parents can go on and see you know how many children at eir school is not vaccinated so i'm surprised to hear at the hool's responsibility when it's their choice when registering their child

that makes sense. i know you and i were talking when we were younger, i was younger longer ago than you, that it was not even a thought. you just did it because that's what you're supposed to do. is that the case when you were growing up? absolutely. that just came second nature when you were a ittle kid you just knew you got your shots. continuous to this day i've continued to keep up with my shots and everything like that. it felt to me that's what you were to do to keep not only yourself healthy but to keep everyone healthy around you because you don't want to get anyone else sick as well now that's what we've been taught, that's what we've learned but parents sometimes don't always agree, am i correct about that? that's very true. i keep my child vaccinated because not only do i want to keep him safe but i want to keep everybody else safe so that's what i was taught so i'm going to keep him, i'm going to teach him that. that's just my thinking you hear reports when people say wait a minute, you're imposing your values on my child how does that make you feel?

is that fair? does it seem right that that should happen to a parent? no, i mean it's it's my value on my child you can have your opinion to your child and your teaching to your child but i can vaccinate my child if i want to. that's your opinion but go ahead. i think that's where it gets interesting too is you're saying my values and my child on this is becoming to be not only just you know coffee talk around in the morning at the office but it's going to social media and in so many different avenues n so many different ways people are talking about this and that's what that's where i think it's really just held today in everything like that without technology the way it is it's grown so much more than even before i was born and things like that where wasn't as easy to access this information and talk about it indifferent forms like that very good. as a nurse i suspect you're probably at the center of this controversy all the time

i am and i have to say that this controversy stems back from 1998 when andrew wakefield a physician published reports and data and findings and research that indicated that there is a link of vaccines to autism and so many parents had access to those reports and given now social media very readily in our hands to be able to share that information that physician and those reports were founded to be he actually admitted to lying and falsifying the document exactly and despite that those findings that they were inaccurate he falsified them he was actually stripped of his license he could no longer practice medicine that information is still there and we're dealing with people's children and parents don't want to make the wrong decision because it's eir children's lives that their children they don't want to be responsible for possibly being

responsible for maybe giving their child autism however there have not been any studies that have shown any links from vaccinations to autism and there have been multiple studies have shown that there is actually not a link there's no sufficient evidence of vaccinations causing autism furthermore i think parents are also very ghtened by the scary ingredients that are passed along in the brochures we just read the brochure and see formaldehyde mercury things like that were frightened by those ingredients but people we don't actually understand what goes into the making of vaccinations and we don't understand the chemistry and the concentrations of how much formaldehyde or what it's used for and then people don't understand that we breathe formaldehyde we eat formaldehyde we drink formaldehyde and your body actually needs formaldehyde as one example to actually function normally

and to have homeostasis so i think that i think that people just take a scary thing formaldehyde and they equate it to death and they figure i don't want my kid to have that dustin we have to be honest, journalists are fueling this controversy because we keep putting these stories out all over the country we see people protesting but i wonder, as a student on campus is this something you think bout? that your classmates think about? honestly no, i know that this is such a big issue going on. not being personally affected by anyone around me that's had something, say as the measels. i know it is spreading around the bay area and california but being that's not something that has really affected especially san jose state is something that we necessarily talk about but it's something that we all know about and i think that's why this is such an important topic that even though it's not always something that may be affecting you right now today and happening right around you that it's still important to know some of these facts and that's why i'm excited to be continue to learn.

i'd like to add that at our heatlh center we've actually expanded our immunization clinic hours so anticipating that maybe people might want to come in and get vaccinated who haven't been vaccinated or check a tighter if the've only got one of the two vaccines. we haven't really seen any business of students interested in the measels i also wanted to comment on your discussion which was great despite the fact that the landmark study being discredited. it's hard to disprove it doesn't just because it doesn't prove there is a causation doesn't mean it doesn't. i'll admit it i'm a people magazine fan and i read very frequently about a couple who, a celebrity couple because that's why their people who had a completely normal child until they got the vaccine and they got a fever fussy and then never the same

and people see that and it's scary and i'm not an autism expert, i'm an internist. but i think they're still stuff out there that people are scared of but what they need to really remember is the of that are claimed to be due to its very small compared the risk of getting measles and it's the cause of the greater community is talked about enough you have immune compromised people it's a live vaccine so people who have not good immune systems can get this through no fault of their own so i think there is a sense of doing the right thing sure and the child is at the core of all this and i think that's what makes parents concerned, i certainly think teachers worry about how students are going to react talk to me a little bit about the child. the child feels ouch and they wonder why are you doing this to me? and then i think sometimes parents might feel guilty about that ouch because they have these uncertainties sure i mean when he gets his shots he screams for thirty seconds hen 5 seconds later he's completely fine

so in the long run i know i'm doing the right thing for him because he's protected he's protected from something that can kill him in the long run so i feel like i'm doing my job as a parent to protect him and the ouch goes away you know and my parents did that for me so i feel like i doing my job as a mom to protect him let me ask you this, i agree with you, i think dustin's parents apparently agree with you but what about the viewers out there that have different perspectives and say that's good for you i don't want to do it and i don't want any government agency or any scientist or any nurse or any doctor telling me what i think is best for my child how do you respond to that? well it's hard to respond because it's not the law that you have to be vaccinated so the problem that i see it is

you don't want to protect your hild and you don't but you want the school and every place else protect you i think if you choose not to protect your child and others who have ot been able to get the vaccine for various reasons then the oweness is on you not the school thats ridiculous as far as i'm concerned so if they want to homeschool their children but i have to say i think most parents who choose not to vaccinate their children it's not an easy decision it's not something that they're just being irresponsible and hippy. i don't think anyone uses that term anymore besides i think there is still alot of thought and discussion that goes into it and i think the other thing as compared to other countries the amount of vaccines you get when you're ally young is huge and you know do they really need to have all

of these in such a short period of time it's like something parents struggle with that as well not just the vaccine but how i think there's 25 in the first year or two it's just staggering and it's scary. let's be fair to all parents, it's not easy to be a parent and if you're a first time parent and you hear all these news stories i'm sure people are thinking well who do we believe which way should i go? i don't want to make a mistake i think it's fair that parents really need to do the research obviously we can expect parents to do research in a way that a medical professional would be able to access research in medical journals and research articles and such and i'm a parent that i don't just go to my doctor and say oh well doctor said so that's- it's not gospel, sorry doc my doctor's okay with that. i offer my opinions and what logically i feel but ultimately i think that parents have to multiple different people

multiple different physicians the physicians that i know our physicians you know they have alot of experience they have alot of education they have alot of training and they have seen alot of things that we can't possibly lay out on the table and understand for example even just the concentrations of things in drugs or even how drugs are formulated we don't understand that what we see is what they publish in people magazine in that is not a valid form of research you can't say what you know a celebrity couple well their child got a fever i mean do we know statistics are very flawed and very skewed and we don't know the full statistical background of what happened with that child you know what is there a genetic background what is the medical history of that child on in order to

determine you can determine one way or another whether you know their autism would've been caused also parents to look at what are the numbers of autism any way and i think probably go to the classroom with the little tots they hear the parents being nervous and they see people possibly on tv talking about it what does it do to the environment for the young person the very young person well- does that make them scared?- you don't really hear the children talking alot about being ill that's the last thing that they're worried about usually. even when they are ill half the time you don't even know they're sick until you send them home with a fever i think that it's really important you were talking about earlier about the social media. social media is quick to say one story but not refute it. i personally never heard that he was disbarred. and that he was discredited, i knew he was discredited but i didn't know to what extent hat part doesn't get out there. i think more education needs to be done to inform parents and parents come to me and they'll ask me as a teacher what do you think about this?

i just want them to be more informed just hear all sides of it before you make your decision many parents aren't even aware i just spoke to a parent last week that was unaware that teachers don't have to be vaccinated it's our choice just like it is parents choice and they're unaware that they just learned four percent of their school is not being vaccinated again its the lack of knowledge that's out there and the education i think we need to be doing more promoting of maybe on commercials, tv social media anything we can you get the message out there of just all points view so they can make an informed decision i think your point is well taken. your're the future of journalism you're the future and you and your classmates that do this show you have to get the message out through social media you know it better than i do how do you get that message out to everybody? well i think it starts with things like today. episodes of equal time things that this is what were able to do is to project this message that's why i wanted to bring this topic today

because it wasn't so much about a debate on way or another who's right who's wrong but it's just about the information like she talked about just bringing that message out there and i think that's with a lot of cases in different issues that have going on in our country is that it starts with the journalism and it begins and it continues to go throughout the people and we need to make sure we educate people on both sides of the equation and talk to you know the specific worries and problems concerns that are out there and to further this issue and to bring it to light and hopefully get more people on the same page my biggest fear though is that young people on social media don't really think about vaccinations they don't talk alot about vaccinations but when they go on in life get married have a family then it becomes absolutely on the front of the table for research and discussion they jump on the internet and they go call you and say i found this on the internet i don't want you giving me that injection is that somewhat what parents young parents face when social media has not been approached until now that i need it and i tell

the doctor i did some research and you don't need to do that does that come into your mind when you're thinking about it? sometimes i mean i was i don't know i guess i was raised without social media so until now i didn't social media wasn't part of it so i always knew i was going to vaccinate my child so i never really thought of it until social media wasn't just the part was apart of my thinking it wasn't a realm of my thought process well one of the best things that we tell journalism students everywhere but especially at san jose state get the facts from the experts but remember people have the right of choice. you have the right of how to tell the story you have the right of choice telling them the information you have the variety of choice in a variety of approaches and i have the right of choice say we're running out of time. but i want to thank you, i think this is a conversation we need to have

to bring down the fear level. we thank you for joining us and we hope you come back for another edition of equal time

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