Fox 4: Health professionals meet in Kansas City to counter false vaccine information

By John Pepitone

More than 3 million people are killed every year from diseases that can be prevented with vaccines. However, doctors are concerned that more Americans are choosing not to get immunizations for themselves or their children based on false information.

Now, health care workers from around the region are learning how to better counter misinformation on immunizations.

Too often, experts say, parents rely on false information from the internet or reach uninformed conclusions based on personal experiences.

"One is: 'I got sick from the vaccine,'" Dr. Angela Myers, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Mercy, said. "If you have an immune response to the vaccine, you have a little bit of fever, a little bit of body ache, that a good thing. That means your immune system recognizes it as foreign and is developing antibodies to develop protection against the actual disease."

However, professionals say most people still trust their own doctors.

Doctors compared fighting false perceptions on immunization to sorting out fact from fiction in political campaigns. They said there's a lot of fake news on social media, and vaccines are not immune from disinformation.

Read the full story via Fox 4

Learn more about Infectious Diseases at Children's Mercy