Choosing a vaccination schedule for your child

The question of vaccine safety has, according to wikipedia, been controversial since widespread vaccination began in the late 18th century. I have a daughter born in late 2009, so I read a number of articles online about vaccination but didn't find anything all that helpful. We got a book called "The Vaccine Book" by Dr Bob Sears (the son of Dr Bill Sears who wrote dozens of parenting books with his wife), which I found to be largely informative and unbiased. Note, though, that a number of online reviews found faults with the book.

Like many things, vaccines have costs and benefits. All vaccines can have side effects. Very crudely (and perhaps inaccurately) speaking, vaccines put a strain on the body, which often leads to exhaustion, occasionally leads to fever, and very rarely can cause infants to have such a severe fever that they have seizures. Other rare and severe side effects also exist. But at the same time, vaccines have been tremendously successful at combating serious illnesses such as polio, as well as typically less serious but annoying illnesses such as the flu. Note that vaccines typically do not give total immunity, but rather decrease the risk of catching a disease to about 10% what it was before vaccination.

The standard vaccination schedule in the US (American Academy of Pediatrics recommended schedule) suggests a lot of vaccinations at each scheduled doctor's visit during infancy. For example, it suggests 5 separate vaccinations to be given at the age of 2 months, then again at 4 months and 6 months. Most people seem to follow this schedule and do just fine. The Sears book recommends an alternative schedule for parents concerned about giving so many vaccinations at a time. In the alternative schedule, you still get all the recommended vaccinations, but you spread them out a bit, giving only 2 per month and adding extra "shots-only" doctors visits, for example, at the ages of 3 months, 5 months, and 7 months.

There are about 10 vaccinations (most require multiple doses) that are recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics to be given to the general population by the age of about 12 during about 10 doctor's visits (or about 20 doctor's visits if you use Sears' alternative schedule). This can be a lot to keep track of. I made an Excel spreadsheet to put all the information together. The spreadsheet indicates the American Academy of Pediatrics schedule which is based on US CDC recommendations ("C" on left side of each box) and the Sears alternative schedule ("S" in middle of each box). In each box, there's space to add a third letter on the right side, which can be used to indicate the vaccination schedule one is actually following.

Spreadsheet: Summary of American Academy of Pediatricians schedule (based on CDC guidelines) and Sears alternative vaccine schedule, with space to add your own schedule:
xls, pdf.

Background information: CDC guidelines downloaded from their website, American Academy of Pediatricians schedule (based on CDC guidelines) as presented in Sears book, and Sears alternative vaccine schedule: pdf.