Summer is a good time to make sure your teenagers or preteens get their four recommended vaccinations

Vaccines aren't just for babies. Preteens and teens also fall into an age group that has both required immunizations for school and recommended vaccines that can save their lives.

Summer is a great time to take care of getting caught up on these vaccinations, because many pre-teens and teens see their primary-care provider anyway for sport and camp physicals. Taking care of them in the summer also helps to miss the back-to-school rush that typically happens as August approaches.

Four vaccines are recommended for preteens and teens, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The flu vaccine is recommended yearly for teens, but three less familiar vaccines and boosters are also recommended. Also, it is recommended that during a vaccination visit, you make sure your child is up to date on all of the vaccinations they should have received when they were younger.

Click here more details.

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and other medical societies recommend these vaccines:

Meningococcal vaccine: This vaccine protects against some of the bacteria that causes meningitis and sepsis, which are very serious and sometimes fatal. It is recommended at 11 or 12 years old and a booster shot is recommended at age 16. Even if your child got the meningococcal vaccine at 12, 14 or 15, the booster is recommended. Older teens who haven't gotten this vaccine should get one as soon as possible.

HPV vaccine: This vaccine protects against the many cancers caused by the human papillomavirus, including cervical cancer in girls, and anal cancer and genital warts in both girls and boys. HPV vaccines are given in a three-dose series that should be started and finished when the boy or girl is 11 and 12. Pre-teens and teens who have not gotten this vaccine series should ask their primary care provider about getting them.

TDAP vaccine: This vaccine protects against three serious diseases: tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, which is commonly called whooping cough. Preteens should get Tdap at 11 or 12. If your teenager didn't get a TDAP shot as a preteen, he or she should get it as soon as possible. This vaccine takes the place of what used to be called the tetanus booster.

Flu vaccine: Preteens and teens should get the flu vaccine every year as soon as it's available, usually in the fall. It is especially important for preteens and teens with chronic conditions like asthma or diabetes to get the flu shot.

"The vaccines for preteens are very safe," says the CDC. Side effects for these vaccines are usually mild and include redness and soreness at the site of the injection, or fainting from the medical procedure.

"Most side effects from vaccines are very minor, especially compared with the serious diseases that these vaccines prevent," says the CDC.

If you don't have insurance or if your plan does not cover vaccines, the Vaccines for Children Program provides vaccines for children ages 18 and younger, who are not insured or are under-insured. Vaccinations are covered on all plans purchased through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Belief in bogus studies and stories undermines use of vaccines that have been proven safe, resulting in spread of diseases

UPDATE: Jan. 16, 2014 4:50  Kentucky has not had any reports of measles in the past three years. It has had two cases of mumps in 2013 and two cases of mumps in 2014. Kentucky continues to have a large number of  pertussis, or whooping cough, cases with 666 in 2012; 383 in 2013; and 292 in 2014. The 2014 reports have not been finalized at this time.

The United States has recently seen a significant rise in the number of cases of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, mumps and pertussis, commonly called whooping cough.

A recent report blames this on an anti-vaccine movement caused by widespread misinformation about the safety of immunizations, John Wihbey reports for Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

"Over the past two decades, a combination of fraudulent scientific studies, irresponsible reporting, and well-meaning but misinformed citizen activists has led to a steady increase in the proportion of parents who have concerns about the recommended childhood vaccine schedule," says a 2014 report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Many young parents in the United States have no memory of  the time before vaccines and don't realize how important successful vaccination programs are to prevent the reemergence of the diseases they protect us from. In 2014, the United States had 610 confirmed cases of measles and 20 outbreaks, the highest number of cases since measles elimination was documented in the U.S. in 2000, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chart provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The origin of much of this misinformation is a "fraudulent" 1998 study, published in a well-respected British medical journal, that linked the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism. And while the study never claimed a definite link between the vaccine and autism, "sensational media reports ignited a public panic and MMR vaccinations fell dramatically," WebMD reports.

The study has since been discredited and retracted from the journal because it "was proven entirely false and even labeled "fraudulent,"" Wihbey writes. A new study, that updated this 1998 fraudulent study, has also shown that the MMR vaccine is not the cause of autism, Daniel J. DeNoon reports for WebMD.

"We are convinced there is no link between MMR vaccination and autism," study leader W. Ian Lipkin, MD, director of the center for infection and immunity at Columbia University in New York City, said at a news conference, DeNoon reports. Lipkin noted that this study did not address the theory that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal might cause autism. The MMR vaccine does not contain thimerosal.

As for thimerosal, "A very large number of scientific studies have been carried out, and extensive scientific reviews, that have concluded there is no causal connection between vaccines or the preservative thimerosal and autism," Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told DeNoon in a different article for WebMD.

The rate of vaccination in the United States is 92 percent for measles, mumps and rubella, which is relatively high, Wihbey reports.And only 1 percent of children in the United States do not receive any vaccines, according to the CDC..

But, "if we stop vaccinating, even the few cases we have in this country could very quickly become tens or hundreds of thousands of cases," says the CDC website.

How "herd immunity" protects us all.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

One concern is that as the vaccination rate drops, the United States will loose its "herd immunity," which offers a level of protection across an entire community that protects even the un-vaccinated. This type of noncompliance occurred in 2011, when 15 states saw MMR vaccination levels below the target level of 90 percent, Wihbey reports. Adding to misinformation about immunizations is media coverage of activists and celebrities with anti-vaccine positions.

In an in-depth article about the media's role in spreading misinformation that childhood vaccines cause autism, Curtis Brainard, for Columbia Jouralism Review, writes: "The consequences of this coverage go beyond squandering journalistic resources on a bogus story. There is evidence that fear of a link between vaccines and autism, stoked by press coverage, caused some parents to either delay vaccinations for their children or decline them altogether."

And it looks like many choose to believe unsubstantiated stories rather than public-health campaigns that attempt to address this misinformation, according to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Pediatrics.

“None of the pro-vaccine messages created by public health authorities increased intent to vaccinate with MMR among a nationally representative sample of parents who have children age 17 years or younger at home," the study concluded.

The researchers said there should be more careful testing of public health campaign messages, suggesting that pediatricians, rated by parents in the study as the most trusted source of vaccine safety information, could be an "especially persuasive source" for this information.

The vast majority of Kentucky's children have been immunized, possibly because state law requires immunizations for admission to school, with exemptions made only for medical or religious purposes.  The CDC reported that less than 1 percent of Kentucky kindergarten children were exempted from one or more vaccine during the 2013-14 school year.

Kentucky has a statewide outbreak of whooping cough, perhaps because the child-immunization rate is declining

Kentucky is having a statewide outbreak of pertussis, also called whooping cough, Jennifer Wohlleb reports for the Kentucky School Advocate, the magazine of the Kentucky School Boards Association. This comes at a time when the immunization rate among Kentucky school children is declining.

At least 230 cases of whooping cough have been diagnosed so far this year, and there were more than 300 confirmed cases last year, Wohlleb reports.

“And those are just reported cases, and most of those are in children,” Kraig Humbaugh, director of the state Division of Epidemiology and Health Planning, told Wohlleb. “And young children are the ones most likely to have the severe consequences, including unfortunately, death."

Another childhood disease, measles, remains in check. Humbaugh told Wohlleb, "We haven’t seen a case of it this year, but almost all of our surrounding states have and there is currently a measles outbreak … with cases that have been imported from other countries.”

That's important to remember, Humbaugh said. “We live a global economy and every day, people can come here from other countries,” where illnesses like measles and polio are still an issue, she said. “Vaccines and immunizations are really, really important, but some people get really complacent because we don’t see them (these diseases) as much anymore, but they’re still a threat.”

During the 2013-14 school year, 81.7 percent of Kentucky sixth-graders received theTdap booster shot, which protect against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. That is below the national average of 84.6 percent. The state’s rate of childhood series immunizations has fallen to 72.7 percent in 2013 for 80.6 percent in 2011, according to the National Immunization Survey, Wohlleb reports.

Schools in Scott County and Hart County both had an outbreak last year and discovered that many of those getting whooping cough were at the age where they needed a booster or right before the age where they needed a booster, Wohlleb reports.

Local health departments help districts communicate with parents, and can provide them with crucial information about the course of an illness.

“Once (a student) is considered to be infectious, it would be recommended that they stay out of school until they have received five days of the appropriate antibiotic treatment, or 21 days from the onset of cough,” Sharon Ray of the Barren River District Health Department told Wohlleb. “So you can see, if we don’t find out about it until you’re three weeks into a cough illness, you’ve already been there your whole infectious period, so we can’t shorten your infection time; where if we know early, we may not keep that student from getting sick, but we may shorten their infectious time to others.”

Kentucky allows parents to exempt their children from vaccinations for medical or religious reasons; it does not allow philosophical exemptions. Humbaugh told Wohlleb that vaccines are "one of the greatest medical success stories of the 20th century," and said "fear and misinformation about vaccinations may be contributing to lower rates of immunizations in areas of the country. "

“I think one thing people fear are side effects of vaccinations,” Humbaugh, who is also a pediatrician, told Wohlleb. “I think the literature shows that certainly, and the 20th century will bear that out, the benefit of being vaccinated for childhood diseases is greater than the small risks associated with vaccinations. To me, vaccinations are like any other type of medication that you give, everything has risks; taking Tylenol has risks. But the risks are very low. These are in general safe, proven effective vaccines, all approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.