Vaccines contain antigens from toxins, viruses, or bacteria that help your body produce antibodies to help prevent future infections.
Of course, we are all exposed to these types of antigens every day.
In fact, experts state that we are exposed to thousands, if not millions, of antigens each day.
Eating. Drinking. Breathing. Touching things. These every day actions all can introduce antigens from viruses, bacteria, parasites, and toxins, etc., into our bodies.
And even though kids get many more vaccines today, and are protected against many more vaccine-preventable diseases than they once were, they actually get far fewer antigens from those vaccines than they once did.
Newer vaccines have a fraction of the antigens that the older DPT and smallpox vaccines once did.

That’s why the popular “too many too soon” anti-vaccine myth shouldn’t scare you from getting your kids vaccinated and protected.
Vaccine Antigen Counts
If you are still stuck on the actual number of vaccines, it is important to “understand that the numbers of antigens given are actually much less than they used to be. This is because we are giving purer vaccines. Vaccines have been isolated down to just the proteins needed to produce protection.”
The antigens are the things in the vaccines that actually trigger the production of antibodies and include antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides.
In 1960, kids got up to 3,217 different antigens from the smallpox, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and whole cell pertussis vaccine.

In 1980, even as MMR replaced the smallpox vaccine, the antigen count in the vaccines kids got was still up to 3,041.
Kids Today Get Purer Vaccines
Even with many more vaccines, the number of different antigens that children will get with today’s immunization schedule is much lower than just 35 or 55 years ago:
- DTaP/Tdap – 7 antigens
- MMR – 24 antigens
- IPV – 15 antigens
- Hib – 2 antigens
- Varicella – 69 antigens
- Prevnar13 – 14 antigens
- hepatitis A – 4 antigens
- hepatitis B – 1 antigens
- MCV4 – 5 antigens
- HPV9 – 9 antigens
- rotavirus – 15 antigens
- Flu – 12 antigens
- Shingrix – 1 antigen (adults only)
That’s just 177 different antigens in 12 vaccines that protect children against 16 vaccine-preventable diseases.
That’s still less than the 200 antigens that were in the smallpox vaccine that kids got 100 years ago.
Even considering that kids get multiple doses of many of these vaccines, with today’s complete vaccine schedule, from birth to age 18, including yearly flu shots, they would get a combined total of just 653 antigens. That’s still much less than a single dose of the DTP vaccine that kids got until 1997, when it was replaced by the DTaP vaccine.
With the 1980 immunization schedule, kids got 5 doses of DTP, 4 doses of OPV, a dose of MMR, and a dose of Td, combining to a grand total of at least 15,096 antigens.
Immune System Response to These Antigens
Of course, this is not to say that kids were exposed to too many antigens in vaccines in the past.
“Current studies do not support the hypothesis that multiple vaccines overwhelm, weaken, or “use up” the immune system. On the contrary, young infants have an enormous capacity to respond to multiple vaccines, as well as to the many other challenges present in the environment. “
Offit et al on Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System?
Looking at the antigen load of vaccines is simply another way to understand that kids don’t get too many vaccines too soon.
In fact, they get exposed to many more antigens from natural infections. A strep throat infection, for example, exposes kids to at least 25 to 50 antigens. That’s comparable to the antigens in the vaccines that infants get at their two month visit – the DTaP, IPV, HepB, Hib, and rotavirus vaccines combine to just 54 antigens.
But it is not just infections that lead to antigen exposures.
Kids are exposed to 2,000 to 6,000 antigens every day and the “vaccines that children receive in the first two years of life are just a drop in the ocean when compared to the tens of thousands of environmental challenges that babies successfully manage every day.”
What to Know About Antigen Counts in Vaccines
Although kids get more vaccines today that their parents and grandparents, they get far fewer antigens from those vaccines.
More About Antigen Counts in Vaccines
- How Many Vaccines Did Kids Get in the 1950s?
- How Many Vaccines Did Kids Get in the 1960s?
- Vaccine Schedules from the 1940s to 2019
- Too Many Too Soon Revisited
- Four Generations of Vaccines and Vaccine Preventable Diseases
- Myths About Your Baby’s Immature Immune System
- How Vaccines Work
- Too Many, Too Soon
- The Infection Schedule versus the Vaccination Schedule
- Multiple vaccinations weakens the immune system – a myth
- Do Children Get Too Many Immunizations? The Answer is No.
- Vaccine Immunology
- Do Babies Get Too Many Vaccines?
- To all who use Paul Offit’s 10,000 vaccine paper to scare others
- Dr. Paul Offit’s Quote on Getting 100,000 Vaccines at Once
- Study – Increasing exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines is not associated with risk of autism
- Study – Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System?