Reaction to last week's Star Tribune story on the anti-vaccine movement was intense — reflecting the frustration of scientists whose overwhelming evidence on vaccine safety is being disregarded, and the exasperation of skeptics who say the science doesn't match up with their reality.

One reader called asking about a middle ground, perhaps because as a grandmother she doesn't play favorites. Her daughter vaccinated her children, she said, but her daughter-in-law did not.

Grandma's question: What about stretching out or delaying the vaccine schedule?

It's a question that has emerged since a couple doctors broke ranks with their peers and wrote books encouraging delayed vaccination schedules for children.

The idea appeals to parents who can't bear seeing their toddlers scream at multiple shots during one office visit, and to skeptics who think too many vaccines at one sitting will make kids sick.

Patsy Stinchfield, a local nurse practitioner and an adviser to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccination policies, replies with unambiguous advice: "Get 'er done."

Stinchfield said there is no evidence that multiple shots at one sitting "overwhelm" the immune system or increase risks of vaccine side effects.

And she offered multiple reasons for getting shots on time.

The measles shot can't be given until children are 1 — when they no longer carry maternal antibodies that "blunt" the vaccine, she said. However, vaccine for whooping cough (or pertussis) doesn't present the same issue and should be given in five doses starting at two months.

"Pertussis in a newborn baby can be life-threatening," she said, "because their airways are so small."

Other reasons to stay the course include the likelihood that parents will forget to make appointments for delayed vaccinations as their children age, or balk if they discover that insurers won't fully cover extra doctors' visits.

Children with incomplete vaccinations can go back at later ages, though. And the immune system remembers, Stinchfield said, so they don't need to redo the first dose.

"The human immune system," she said, "is a marvel."