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Medical school students receive little, if any, training on vaccines, vaccine-related adverse events, and how to treat vaccine injuries, several physicians and experts told The Defender. Instead, training for prospective pediatricians focuses on how to respond to “vaccine hesitancy.”
Florida pediatrician Dr. Brian Thornburg drew attention to physicians’ lack of training in identifying and treating vaccine injuries in a video last week. Thornburg told viewers that pediatricians receive “zero training” in “identifying vaccine injuries.”
For their medical board exams, medical students “have to know the vaccine schedule,” Thornburg said. However, “there’s no questions about vaccine injuries or potential complications.”
Texas pediatrician Dr. Osvaldo Villarreal said the issue of vaccine injuries “is not recognized or discussed” by medical schools.
Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, said medical schools provide such training “only to a limited extent,” adding:
“Medical students and pediatric residents are taught minimally that vaccines can have adverse effects, and they are generally instructed to recognize common reactions such as fever, local injection-site reactions, allergic responses, and, in rare circumstances, more serious complications.
“However, the emphasis of the training is overwhelmingly on the benefits of vaccination rather than on the detailed identification and investigation of potential vaccine-related injuries.”
A 2023 study in the journal AJPM Focus, based on a survey of first- and second-year medical students at a major medical school in Pennsylvania, found:
- 79% of student respondents reported “insufficient coverage of vaccine topics in the current curriculum.”
- 80% of course faculty said medical students currently receive “insufficient vaccine education in the formal curriculum.”
- 71.6% of students called for broadened elective education on vaccines, and 54.3% called for formal or mandatory vaccine education.
- 44% of students reported “insufficient knowledge of vaccine policy.”
- 40.7% of students reported insufficient knowledge on “vaccine development and testing.”
- 40.7% of students said they felt “moderate-to-low” comfort in giving vaccine information in a nonclinical setting, and only slightly more than half — 53.1% — expressed comfort in doing so in clinical settings.
Varon said this lack of training leaves pediatricians unprepared to speak about or treat vaccine injuries.
“Most physicians leave training with the understanding that vaccine injuries can occur, but with relatively little practical experience in recognizing uncommon, delayed, or more complex presentations that may follow immunization.”
Dr. Larry Palevsky said he doesn’t believe medical schools speak much to the idea that vaccine injuries occur. “If anything, they might play them down and minimize the number of injuries that occur.”
Varon said patients, including parents, “deserve physicians who are willing to think critically, evaluate evidence honestly, and follow the data wherever they lead” and warned that medicine “should never become dogmatic.”
“When a patient presents with a potential adverse event … the physician’s job is neither to defend a product nor to attack it. The physician’s job is to care for the patient in front of them,” Varon said.
Parents are increasingly seeking out pediatricians who will honor their preferences regarding if and when to vaccinate their children, according to doctors and parents who spoke with The Defender in April. “Vaccine-friendly” doctors who inform parents about vaccination risks have seen their patient lists skyrocket in recent years.
Two surveys conducted last year found that 60% of pregnant women and young mothers are considering delaying or refusing routine vaccinations for their children.
‘Not once were any of the ingredients in vaccines covered’
Several physicians said the lack of vaccine-related training is a longstanding trend. “I was in medical school from 1999 to 2003,” Villarreal said. “I don’t recall ever talking about vaccine injuries.”
Villarreal said he did not receive training about vaccine injuries even during residency and was unaware of the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) “until maybe 10 years” into his pediatric career.
Pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas attended medical school from 1981 to 1985. He said his experience in medical school was similar to Villarreal’s.
“I had zero training. As a medical student and as a pediatric resident in training, not once were any of the ingredients in vaccines covered. [VAERS] was never mentioned. I didn’t even know it existed until I woke up to the real issue of vaccine injuries because I was seeing them in my practice,” Thomas said.
Dr. Kimberly Biss, a Florida-based board-certified OB-GYN, also described a similar experience during her time in medical school.
“I was in medical school from 1989 to 1993. I do not recall learning anything about vaccines other than what they were for and the schedule, nor injuries other than Guillain-Barré syndrome,” Biss said.
Varon said medical school curricula typically emphasize “vaccine schedules, mechanisms of action, efficacy data, public health benefits, contraindications, and the reporting of recognized adverse events.”
While students “are taught to report suspected reactions,” Varon said “this rarely happens” because “often missing is a more nuanced discussion of uncertainty.”
“Medicine is rarely black and white,” Varon said. “Patients do not always present exactly as textbooks predict. There is often insufficient discussion about how to evaluate a patient who develops new symptoms after vaccination when the relationship is not immediately obvious.”
Any suggestion that vaccines may pose risks is viewed as ‘controversial’
In his video, Thornburg said medical students are not even taught about the list of potential side effects included in vaccine package inserts, “nor are we ever asked any questions on our medical boards about those.”
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said medical schools do not train students to report vaccine injuries.
“I am not aware of any efforts to educate about reporting injuries or the short statute of limitations for filing a claim for compensation,” Orient said. What’s missing “in medical society communications is reference to reportable injuries if you are giving vaccines.”
Varon said that medical schools’ emphasis on the safe and effective narrative contributes to their lack of emphasis on vaccine-injury training and reporting.
“Traditionally, medical schools present vaccines as one of the great success stories of modern medicine, which they unquestionably have been in many respects. Consequently, vaccine-related risks are often discussed within the context of their rarity compared with the diseases being prevented,” Varon said.
Any suggestion that vaccines may pose risks is viewed as “controversial,” Varon said. “Medical education sometimes becomes uncomfortable when discussing areas that appear controversial. There can be a tendency to move quickly past difficult questions rather than explore them in depth.”
“What is left out of medical schools and residency training is that vaccine injury exists, and that there are many more injuries than are accounted for,” Palevsky said.
‘Fact-checkers’ ignore lack of medical school training on vaccine injuries
In 2021, The Associated Press (AP) “fact-checked” a video by Dr. Suzanne Humphries, who specializes in internal medicine and nephrology. In the video, Humphries said doctors “are not taught about vaccines in medical school” — or about vaccine ingredients, their manufacturing process or their potential risks and dangers.
According to the AP, “vaccine education is included in medical school training” and the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination “also includes topics about vaccines.”
The following year, Lead Stories also “fact-checked” Humphries’ video, quoting Dr. Geoffrey Talmon, senior associate dean of Medical Education at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who said students “receive at least 6 hours of training” on vaccines “spread across all four years and in each of the three phases of our curriculum.”
Talmon said this education includes training on methods of production, different forms of vaccine and their “respective mechanisms of action,” vaccine efficacy data and differences in their effectiveness and guidelines across different populations, and “vaccine hesitancy and methods for addressing it.”
However, these responses sidestepped any specific mention of vaccine risks and vaccine-related injuries.
According to the 2023 study, medical schools in the U.S. typically offer a four-year program of study, composed of a two-year preclinical curriculum “comprising mostly didactic teachings” and two years of clinical rotations in various hospital specialties.
The study cited the 2022 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Curriculum Inventory, which found that 125 of 140 U.S. medical schools “include some topics related to vaccines and immunization in their curriculum,” despite “no standardized formal vaccine education in most medical programs.”
A sample pediatric residency curriculum presented by the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics includes no clear mention of any topics related to vaccine risks or adverse events.
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Medical schools train students to target ‘vaccine hesitancy’ among parents
Some pediatric training syllabi reviewed by The Defender included a cursory mention of vaccine-related risks.
The syllabus for a University of Utah course, Pediatric Infectious Disease, included training on the currently recommended childhood vaccination schedule and in administering “routine immunizations with related counseling that addresses contraindications and common side effects and obtain informed consent.”
A University of Bridgeport pediatric clerkship includes a module training students to: “Ensure absence of contraindications (severe allergies, medications preventing live vaccine administration).”
Orient said medical schools focus more on training students to respond to “parents’ concerns,” as part of an effort to “fight vaccine hesitancy.”
AAMC emphasizes the need for medical schools to mitigate “health misinformation,” including “vaccine hesitancy.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, it offered grants to educational institutions — in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Big Pharma-linked organizations — to develop such curricula.
“It is the responsibility of the academic medicine community to ensure current and future health care providers have the tools necessary to dispel misinformation,” the AAMC states.
A 2017 paper published on the MedEd Portal, an AAMC journal, proposed a “flipped classroom and case-based curriculum to prepare medical students for vaccine-related conversations with parents.”
Varon said medical schools should instead opt for a more balanced approach.
“Good physicians should be able to hold two truths simultaneously: Vaccines can provide important public health benefits, and vaccines can also produce adverse events in some individuals. Recognizing one reality should not require denying the other,” Varon said.
“The goal should never be advocacy. The goal should be scientific curiosity, intellectual honesty and patient-centered medicine.”
Related articles in The Defender
- More Parents Seek Out ‘Vaccine-Friendly’ Pediatricians Who Will ‘Simply Answer Their Questions’
- Florida Pediatrician Used to Toe the ‘Party Line’ on Vaccines. Then He Started Listening to Parents
- Dr. Paul Thomas: Why I Don’t Vaccinate Kids — and What Parents Should Know
- ‘Callous and Careless’: AAP Pushes Doctors to Vaccinate Hospitalized Children
- ‘An Encouraging Sign’: 60% of Pregnant Women and Young Mothers May Delay or Refuse Routine Vaccines for Kids
- Let Food Be Thy Medicine? RFK Jr. Announces 50+ Medical Schools Will Add Nutrition Training
