Pediatrician Robert W. Sears, MD, wrote The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child, in which he outlines an untraditional “alternative” schedule that delays shots or spaces them further apart.

Dr Bob Sears Image/Video Screen Shot
Dr Bob Sears
Image/Video Screen Shot

On last night’s All in with Chris Hayes show on MSNBC, the host spoke to popular and often criticized pediatrician and author, Dr Bob Sears about his thoughts on delaying vaccines.

Hayes starts out asking Dr Sears, “Where is the published, peer-reviewed evidence to support to notion of a “overload” if you follow the CDC recommended schedule, where does that exist?”

“I don’t think there is any such research, I actually never claimed there was”, Sears said. “I certainly have put out there very clearly in my writings that my precautions about spreading out vaccines are theoretical, a theoretical benefit to kids and it’s a choice I think a lot of parents feel more comfortable about and might actually bring more parents to vaccinate if they can spread the shots out more than the regular schedule”.

Hayes later questions Sears motives for the book suggesting its it ploy to sell books. Sears calmly said, “If you go back to the 80s when we gave vaccines to children, we gave about 8 vaccines back then, almost all parents complied felt it was real safe and their wasn’t a lot of reactions. in the 90s, the 2000s and now, that number has moved from 8 vaccines to 54 vaccines. Some parents are trying to question, is this escalation too much for their little babies to handle and they want to spread it out.”

Asking Dr Sears if he is stoking the fears with “superstition” and ignoring research, the pediatrician pointed to the VAERS saying about 2,000 sever reactions are reported annually- The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national vaccine safety surveillance program co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). VAERS is a post-marketing safety surveillance program, collecting information about adverse events (possible side effects) that occur after the administration of vaccines licensed for use in the United States.

Related: Vaccines: An interview with Dr. Paul Offit

He does acknowledge that these are not proven reactions to the vaccines. Watch the rest of the interview below: