Vaccination Policy

You can also download a pdf copy of our policy here.

“We here at Gateway Pediatrics firmly believe in the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent serious illness and to save lives.

We firmly believe in the safety of our vaccines.

We firmly believe all children and young adults should receive all of the recommended vaccines according to the schedule published by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control.

We firmly believe, based on all available literature, evidence, and current studies – vaccines do not cause autism or other developmental disabilities.

We firmly believe vaccinating children may be the single most important health-promoting intervention we perform as health care providers, and that you can perform as parents/caregivers. The recommended vaccines and schedule are the result of many years of scientific study and data gathering on millions of children by our brightest scientists and physicians. Unfortunately, the vaccine campaign is truly a victim of its own success. It is because vaccines are so effective at preventing illness that we are even discussing whether or not they should be given. Because of vaccinations, many of you have never seen a child with polio, tetanus, whooping cough, bacterial meningitis, or even chickenpox. You have never known a friend or family member whose child died of one of these diseases. Such successes can make us complacent about the need for vaccination. However, as the opinion of “vaccines are not necessary” is becoming more globally widespread, we are witnessing the resurgence of many of these diseases and sadly, this will likely lead to tragic results.

We are making you aware of these facts not to scare you, or to coerce you, but to emphasize the importance of vaccinating your child. We recognize the choice may be a very emotional one for some parents. We will try our best to address your concerns and doubts to help show you that vaccinating according to the recommended schedule is in the best interest of your child and the community as a whole.

In some cases, we will consider altering the schedule to accommodate parental reservations. However, please be advised that delaying or modifying the schedule to give only one or two vaccines at a time over several visits goes against expert recommendation and can put your child at risk for serious illness (or even death) and goes against our medical advice as providers at Gateway Pediatrics. We remind parents who are modifying the recommended schedule to inform all medical providers (nurses, ER physicians, on-call providers) if your child is not fully vaccinated. We also ask you to inform us if you plan to travel out of the country as many other countries have higher incidences of vaccine preventable diseases. Also, please be aware if your child is ill, and not fully vaccinated, our list of possible diagnoses will be more extensive and thus an evaluation may involve more invasive testing (e.g. blood draws, lumbar punctures, etc.)

If, after you consider all the above, you choose to not vaccinate your child, in order to remain a patient at Gateway Pediatrics, you will need to sign the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Refusal to Vaccinate Form, without modification, at every visit a vaccine has been recommended.

We will gladly address any additional items you would like to discuss on an individual basis.

Thank you for your time in reading our policy.”

You can download the American Academy of Pediatrics Refusal to Vaccinate Form here.

You can view and download CDC Vaccine Information Statements here.