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Dr. Lori Anderson in one of the examining rooms at her family practice in the Synergy Center, Manlius. Anderson is one of the few doctors in Central New York who will take patients who are not vaccinated. Ellen M. Blalock | eblalock@syracuse.com

MANLIUS, N.Y. -- Many pediatric practices have signs in their waiting rooms: If the parents aren't interested in vaccinating their kids, they should go elsewhere.

In Central New York, "elsewhere" is Dr. Lori Anderson's office.

The Manlius family doctor is one of the few doctors in Upstate New York who

accepts parents who don't want to vaccinate their children.

As the country grapples with one of the largest measles outbreaks in recent history, parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children are being blamed for the rebirth of the potentially deadly virus. They and their children are increasingly not welcome in many doctors' office.

At Anderson's Synergy Center in Manlius, Anderson is carving out an interesting niche: She attracts the anti-vaxxers without sharing their opinions. She hears them out without arguing. Her practice serves as a moderating example between the angry extremes being defended nationally.

Anderson, the "anti-vaxxers' doctor," also has a bit of a secret. Even though 80 percent of her pediatric patients - more than 1,000 children - had parents with concerns about vaccinations when they started at her office, only a handful of children remain unvaccinated by the time they were ready for kindergarten. The majority were fully vaccinated by age 5, she and her staff said.

Anderson does something that makes other doctors uneasy: Instead of using the time-tested standard childhood vaccination schedule, she lets parents dictate when and how many shots to give.

Anderson said it's better than no shots at all.

"It's a good compromise," she said. "They get all of their vaccines. They are ready for kindergarten."

Anderson, who is from Nevada, is quiet and plain-spoken. When asked what other doctors think of her, she paused.

"I can't tell you what other doctors say about me," Anderson said. "But I can tell you what patients say about other doctors. A lot of my patients come because they've been thrown out of practices."

She's reluctant to discuss whether her girls, 4 and 6, are being vaccinated on a traditional schedule. She's not the only one who makes choices about their healthcare, she said.

The parents who show up at her practice fit the mold of the parents at the center of the California measles outbreak: upper middle class and educated. They are lawyers, professors and even some doctors.

"They have this precious little baby, and they want to do the very best that they can," Anderson said.

Anderson, 49, has been in family practice since 1997. She graduated from the University of Nevada Medical School and did her residency at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse. Many of the doctors she trained under and with, she said, will not keep patients who aren't vaccinated.

Anderson wasn't always the "anti-vaxxers' doctor." About 10 years ago, she had several pregnant patients who told her they were concerned about vaccinating their babies. Some of them were her personal friends. They brought her article after article, she said, about links between different vaccines and health problems. This was before a study that linked vaccines to autism had been discredited.

Anderson sat with the patients, read through the articles and researched the background of each vaccine to better answer the questions. Little by little, word spread that she was "vaccine-choice friendly."

The concept goes along with Anderson's current practice at the Synergy Center in Manlius, which also offers chiropractic care, Reiki, life coaching and detoxification.

Anderson said she often suggests Dr. Robert Sears' alternative vaccine schedule. The schedule is included in Sears' book about vaccines.

The Sears schedule delays some shots and spaces them out more. Though Sears' rationale for the alternate schedule and the book was to allay their fears of parents who were worried about vaccines, some doctors say he's undermining public health.

"First do no harm"

Dr. Jana Shaw, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital, doesn't know Anderson, but disagrees with the concept of vaccinating children on a different schedule. She said alternative schedules, like the one suggested by Sears, haven't been tested.

"I would not be able to take patients who ask for alternative schedules as it would contradict my moral and professional obligation to them, and promise I made under the Hippocratic oath, which is, 'First, do no harm,' " Shaw said.

She said Sears' practice of recommending a schedule that hasn't been tested could be grounds for taking away a doctor's license to practice medicine. Shaw also said that a recent study of data from more than 300,000 children showed there was an increased risk of seizures if the first measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was given to

children older than the current recommended age of 12 to 15 months.

While many doctors don't advertise their openness to alternative vaccine schedules, it seems like more allow patients to use them. Shaw said a recent study showed that 25 percent of infants in New York were vaccinated using an alternate schedule.

Anderson's decision to let patients go off-schedule is a time consuming one that comes with risks.

Patients have to come back more often for extra shots. Anderson has to spend more time figuring out how to get everything in. Recently, she spent part of an evening trying to figure out how to get a home-schooled 7 year old, who had been unvaccinated, up to date.

As the measles outbreak continues to grow and the risk becomes real, Anderson is concerned about children whose parents have delayed their measles vaccines (in the MMR shot). She said she plans to push harder to get kids up to date with their MMR shots.

But many of the hesitant parents are coming to that decision without prodding. Her office has had calls from several parents who have changed their minds about the shot in recent weeks.

Emily Ryan and her son, Liam. Ryan, who takes Liam to Dr. Lori Anderson, vaccinated him at a slower than normal schedule, and plans to do the same with the baby she is expecting later this month.

Emily Ryan, who lives in Erieville, said she found Anderson's office through word of mouth after feeling pushed out of a more traditional pediatrician's office. She wasn't against vaccinating her son, Liam, she said. She was just concerned.

She said she tried to talk to her doctor about her worries and the possibility of spacing some of the shots out.

"They wouldn't talk to me," Ryan said.

Ryan, 31, has a master's degree in elementary education, but now stays home with Liam. She's expecting her second child, a daughter, this month. She was also looking for a doctor who was more open to the use of alternative medicine and found that in Anderson, she said. Ryan is planning to give birth to her daughter at home.

Ryan said she wasn't worried about autism or the discredited study linking it to vaccines, but more the idea of putting so many things into her fragile baby's body at once.

"They're a tiny little person. You buy them the softest clothes and carry them so delicately. And you put all this crap in their body," Ryan said. "It just seems like a lot."

When she took her son to Anderson's office around the time he turned 1, she told Anderson she wanted to give her son no more than one shot in a month. Anderson agreed. Liam, now 2, is fully vaccinated.

Ryan said she plans to vaccinate the baby, just at the same, slower pace.

"I think people want to do the right thing," Anderson said. "They just don't want it jammed down their throats."

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