Adopted May 2015 – Revised November 2021 – Health & Community Concerns Commission
California State PTA believes in the importance of preventing and eliminating factors that may be detrimental to the health, safety and well-being of all children, youth and families.
California State PTA believes prevention programs are vital and recognizes that any circumstance that interferes with a child’s potential to become a healthy, educated, productive, citizen places that child at risk. California State PTA believes that vaccinations are proven deterrents to diseases that in previous generations have impacted large numbers of children annually.
One of the objectives of PTA is to “secure adequate laws for the care and protection of our children and youth” and vaccinations are one way that happens.
PTA has supported vaccinations since their inception over 100 years ago. Vaccinations have had an enormous impact on improving the health of children in the United States. Vaccines have been so effective that most parents in our country today have never seen first-hand the devastating consequences that vaccine-preventable diseases have on a family or community.
California State PTA actively advocates for the protection of our children and families through vaccinations and supports legislation that furthers that protection. PTA believes it’s important that we continue to protect our children with vaccines because outbreaks of harmful diseases can and do occasionally occur. Vaccination does more than protect the individual, it protects entire communities, including those individuals who are unable to be vaccinated.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinations throughout childhood are essential to help provide immunity before children are exposed to potentially life-threatening diseases. Vaccines are tested to ensure that they are safe and effective for children to receive at the recommended ages.
Although infants do receive a lot of shots, they are given at the time babies are most at risk of illness and serious complications from disease. The diseases that immunizations prevent are very serious and can cause liver damage, heart disease, or hearing loss, all of which can last a lifetime, or even death. Vaccines are well studied to make sure that it is safe to give them all at once. Today, most children in the United States lead much healthier lives and parents live with much less anxiety and worry over infections during childhood. Immunizations are one of the success stories of modern medicine.
California State PTA believes that all children, with the exception of those who are medically vulnerable, must receive the prescribed vaccinations in the age-appropriate timeline, in order to protect themselves, their families, their communities, and medically vulnerable children.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html
California Department of Public Health: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19Vaccine.aspx
US Department of Health and Human Services: https://search.usa.gov/search?affiliate=usagov&query=vaccinations
Stanford Children’s Health: https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/
