A growing number of parents are tossing their doctors' recommendations about when to vaccinate and choosing their own path by delaying, spacing or forgoing vaccines out of fears for their children's safety.

Now, a prominent group of federal vaccine officials, safety advocates and public health officials -- including two Utahns -- suggests exploring research into the current vaccine schedule and possible links to a variety of disorders, including autism.

Utah's top public health officer, Utah Department of Health director David Sundwall, says such study is warranted. He is part of a group recommending that an independent expert panel evaluate whether it would be possible to compare vaccinated children to unvaccinated children and their incidence of allergies, asthma, learning disabilities and autism, among other disorders.

The recommendation, along with other research proposals, will be discussed by the National Vaccine Advisory Committee in Washington, D.C., in two weeks.

"Vaccines are the foundation of public health. They've been proven safe," Sundwall said Tuesday. But parents' fears shouldn't be dismissed, he added.

"Parents have for a long time expressed concern about too much vaccination in one visit or too close together," he said. "It is an issue and we have to face that and look at different kinds of spacing."

The current CDC schedule, which calls for three times the number of vaccines than in the 1980s, can involve six vaccines in one visit.

Andrew Pavia, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah, joined Sundwall and 25 others in asking for an expert panel to determine whether a vaccine schedule study is warranted. The group met in Salt Lake City last month to develop the recommendation.

Pavia, who declined to be interviewed until the recommendation is made later this month, is in charge of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee's Safety Working group. It is helping to set the national five-year vaccine safety and research agenda.

On a Web newsletter to pediatricians at Primary Children's Medical Center, Pavia said vaccine benefits seem obvious: He has cared for patients with vaccine-preventable diseases such as a fatal case of meningococcal meningitis, and a pertussis case that led to respiratory failure.

But he noted that while studies have refuted a link between vaccines and autism, "We have to admit that we don't yet know what does cause autism."

Some have called on the CDC to further study a possible link with vaccines.

While the national advocacy group Autism Speaks recommends parents follow the standard vaccine schedule, it says the question of whether immunizations are linked with an increased risk should be a high priority, because recent studies have pointed to the role of the immune system in autism spectrum disorders.

Among its ideas: The government should study whether the use of combination vaccines creates a greater risk, and whether certain subgroups of children, based on genetics, are at greater risk.

"We need to work together to work restore the level of trust of vaccines," said Peter Bell, an executive vice president for Autism Speaks who attended the Utah meeting.

Sundwall said he believes research will confirm that the current schedule is safe for most children, but "maybe we're missing something and that's why we need to do the research to give the parents the confidence."

Jeff Schmidt, a Sandy pediatrician and past-president of the Utah chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said parents are increasingly questioning vaccines, though Utah's vaccine public school exemption rate seems to be holding steady at 3 percent. Still, just a sliver of Utah children are considered up to date.

"People forget these diseases were rampant years ago. Many people suffered and died," said Schmidt, predicting future outbreaks in Utah.

Schmidt says he works with questioning parents and most decide to follow the federal schedule. At Healing Solutions Pediatric Centers in Sandy, naturopathic physician Joseph Humpherys offers an alternative schedule.

The federal schedule "is too many, too soon, too often," he said last year. "A lot of parents feel very judged."

hmay@sltrib.com