Which Vaccines Are Vegan

The rabies vaccine is made with gelatin. Are you going to skip it if your vegan child is bit by a rabid dog? — This rabies vaccine is made with gelatin. Are you going to skip it if your vegan child is bit by a rabid dog?

Vegans do not eat meat, fish, poultry, etc., and also do not use animal products or their by-products.

So in addition to eating a plant-based diet, like vegetarians, you also don’t eat eggs or cheese, drink milk, or wear leather, etc.

Are Vaccines Vegan?

Since many vaccines contain some ingredients, like gelatin, that are derived from animals, they aren’t considered to be vegan.

Still, since there aren’t many vegan vaccines, it isn’t possible or practical to avoid getting vaccinated, so most vegans do seem to get their families vaccinated and protected against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Although people argue both ways, you should consider that:

many medicines, like Tamiflu, aren’t vegan, so what happens if you get sick with a vaccine-preventable disease?
many of the ingredients in vaccines that aren’t considered to be vegan are removed in final processing and aren’t present in the final vaccine, except in residual amounts
vaccines save lives, both human lives and animal lives
if you are not vaccinated and you get sick, you put others at risk for getting sick too

And mostly understand that just like people abuse religious exemptions and medical exemptions, many vegans don’t vaccinate solely because they are against vaccines.