Any adolescent may receive the vaccine to reduce their likelihood of acquiring influenza infection. Pneumococcal vaccine should be given to all adolescents with chronic illnesses associated with increased risk of pneumococcal disease or its complications. The adolescent health care visit should be used to assure that the vaccine has been administered to persons for whom it is indicated. The recommendations for adolescent immunizations provided by the ACIP represent an advancement in efforts to improve the health of this population. Implementation, however, presents a different set of challenges.
All states require that students receive certain immunizations in order to attend school.
Although the requirements are fairly uniform in regard to immunizations for younger children, they are inconsistent in regard to adolescent vaccinations. For example, as of 1993-1994 only 9 of 52 states, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, specifically require a Td booster after age 10 in order to attend secondary school and only 37 states require a second measles vacination. The following statements, recommended by the Council on Scientific Affairs, were adopted as AMA Policy at the 1995 AMA Interim Meeting. The AMA will lobby Congress to provide both the resources and the programs necessary, using the recommendations of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee and in accordance with the provision set forth in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Act, to ensure that children nationwide are immunized on schedule, thus representing progress in preventive medicine. The AMA endorses the recommendations on adolescent immunization developed by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices and approved by both the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics.