Parents Increasingly Putting Pressure on Doctors to Delay Vaccines: Survey

Increasingly, doctors face pressure from parents to spread out vaccines given to their children.

According to a University of Colorado study, 90 percent of doctors have received requests from parents to delay vaccinations. Out of that poll, three-quarters have agreed to some form of a delay against their better medical judgement.

The main reason given is that doctors are afraid of losing their patients - costing them business but also potentially leaving innocent children without good health care, according to the survey published in the journal Pediatrics.

According to the CDC, US children are vaccinated against 14 illness, including the flu, from birth and six years.

The doctors agreed to the delay despite 87 percent saying that changing the vaccine schedule put the children at risk for diseases like the measles. Wide majorities of the doctors cited the reasons of building trust with families and fear that the families would leave their practice if they did not agree.

Speaking to Bloomberg, lead study author Allison Kempe, a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado, explainer her team's findings. "They feel torn. They feel both the desire to have an alliance with the family but also they feel strongly about the medical and scientific reasons for immunizing."

The researchers surveyed 534 doctors by email or regular mail in 2012. Participants were doctors who are members of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians - the two leading groups of doctors who treat young children. One in 5 doctors said at least 10 percent of parents had requested vaccine delays by spreading them out over more months than is recommended.