Tag: adjuvants

Vaccine Induced Diseases

In addition to autism, many anti-vaccination ‘experts’ continue to claim that vaccines cause other diseases and conditions, including SIDS and Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Vaccine Injuries

Are there any real vaccine induced diseases?

There is vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP), which can rarely occur after getting the oral polio vaccine.

And there are other conditions that are listed as table injuries under the NVICP, including brachial neuritis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, thrombocytopenic purpura, and encephalitis, etc.

Vaccine Induced Diseases

Vaccines can also sometimes cause fainting and febrile seizures.

Most other ‘vaccine induced diseases’ that are supposed to be caused by a vaccine injury have been proven to not be though.

These include:

  • ADHD
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • ASIA
  • seasonal allergies
  • asthma
  • Celiac disease
  • diabetes
  • Down syndrome (Trisomy 21)
  • eczema
  • Graves disease
  • Gulf War Syndrome
  • Henoch-Schoenlein purpura
  • infertility
  • Kawasaki syndrome
  • leprosy
  • Lou Gehrig’s disease
  • multiple sclerosis
  • myasthenia gravis
  • obesity
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • peanut allergies
  • POTS
  • SSPE

The NVIC even provides “new evidence for a connection” between diabetes and vaccination reactions – from 1998.

And many sites claim they can ‘heal’ your child’s vaccine induced diseases (VIDS) with homeopathy or detox plans scams.

What To Know About Vaccine Induced Diseases

Vaccines are not 100% safe, but it is rare for them to cause serious conditions, and they certainly do not cause all of the ‘vaccine induced diseases’ that some folks try to scare you about.

More About Vaccine Induced Diseases

HPV Vaccine Myths

Few vaccines have generated as many myths as the HPV vaccine. Well at least not since folks falsely started to blame the MMR vaccine for causing an autism epidemic.

The HPV vaccines get their own myths though, from the idea that they encourage kids to have unprotected sex (they don’t) to the creation of a new disorder – ASIA (which most people think doesn’t exist).

Discussing the HPV vaccine on the Ricki Lake Show, Dr. Jay Gordon said that:

I don’t like this vaccine… Heaven help us if we have a generation of kids who get a hepatitis B vaccine and a HPV vaccine and they think that now unprotected sex is okay…

I don’t think it is really clear that this vaccine is really as safe as they say it is and it is certainly not as dangerous as they say it is, but I recommend against it in my practice.

Not surprisingly, studies have confirmed that HPV vaccines are safe and they don’t encourage kids to unprotected sex.

And this is the vaccine that Rep. Michele Bachmann said caused mental retardation:

She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection. And she suffered from mental retardation thereafter.

The president of the AAP had to correct her on that one.

For more information:

Squalene in Vaccines

Is squalene really the “dirty little secret” in our flu vaccines?

Of course not.

For one thing, squalene, an adjuvant, isn’t even used in vaccines in the United States. That’s easy to figure out when you look at the package inserts for our vaccines, the presence of which would make it hard to keep an ingredient like squalene a secret anyway.

And while squalene is used in some flu vaccines in other countries, the WHO reports that squalene is “is manufactured in the liver of every human body and circulates in our bloodstream.”

So anti-vax types are fussing about a natural ingredient that isn’t even in our vaccines?

For more information:

Adjuvants

An adjuvant is classically defined as “an ingredient of a vaccine that helps create a stronger immune response in the patient’s body.”

The most commonly used adjuvant in vaccines in the United States is aluminum.

Aluminum is an adjuvant in many DTaP, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, Hib, HPV, pneumococcal, and Tdap vaccines.

Monophosphoryl lipid A is another adjuvant that is used in one brand of HPV vaccine.

Not all vaccines have adjuvants though. And other countries use different adjuvants.

The bottom line is that adjuvants in vaccines are safe.

For more information:

Aluminum in Vaccines

Aluminum is a metal that has become the latest ‘toxin’ that some people worry about since thimerosal was removed from vaccines.

Like thimerosal, there are many myths and much misinformation that surrounds aluminum and which scares some parents away from vaccinating their kids.

Aluminum in Vaccines

Aluminum is an adjuvant. It is present in low amounts in some vaccines.

Unlike thimerosal, which is a preservative that kept bacteria from growing in multi-dose vials of vaccines, aluminum is present in vaccines to help them produce a stronger immune response.

Aluminum is used in vaccines that protect kids against several vaccine-preventable diseases, including diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP and Tdap), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), hepatitis B, hepatitis A, HPV, and pneumococcal disease (Prevnar).

Although not a vaccine that is routinely given to children, the rabies vaccine also contains aluminum.

Keep in mind that aluminum is a ubiquitous compound. It is “present in the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat.”

But even when you consider how much aluminum infants might get from ingestion of breast milk or infant formula, drinking water, getting vaccines, and other sources, it is clear that “the body burden of aluminum from vaccines and diet throughout an infant’s first year of life is significantly less than the corresponding safe body burden of aluminum modeled using the regulatory MRL (minimal risk levels).”

Aluminum Didn’t Replace Thimerosal

One common myth about aluminum is that it replaced thimerosal in vaccines. Of course, it didn’t.

Thimerosal is a preservative. Aluminum is an adjuvant. They serve totally didn’t purposes.

As wrong as this myth is, you can see how antivaccine folks came up with it.

Even though aluminum has been used in vaccines for over 100 years, a few new vaccines that use aluminum have been added to the immunization schedule since 2000, which is about the time that thimerosal was removed from vaccines:

  • Prevnar
  • HepA
  • Tdap
  • HPV

Only two of these are given to younger children though, and only one, Prevnar, is given to infants.

Other newer vaccines, including rotavirus vaccines, flu vaccines, and meningococcal vaccines, don’t use aluminum as an adjuvant.

But even though two vaccines with aluminum were added to the immunization schedule for younger children, twice as many with thimerosal were changed to thimerosal free versions (hepatitis B, DTaP, flu, and Hib vaccines). So why are anti-vaccine folks saying that autism rates didn’t drop after thimerosal was removed from vaccines because it was replaced with aluminum?

Aluminum and Autism

While aluminum didn’t replace thimerosal in vaccines, it did replace thimerosal as what they could blame for the autism epidemic.

But of course, aluminum in vaccines doesn’t cause autism.

In fact, “vaccines using aluminum adjuvants have a demonstrated safety profile of more than six decades.”

Studies have concluded that the risk of aluminum in vaccines to infants “is not significant” and that the “risk to infants posed by the total aluminum exposure received from the entire recommended series of childhood vaccines over the first year of life is extremely low.”

As you get educated about vaccines, you will hopefully understand that the presence of aluminum in vaccines is not a good reason to skip or delay getting your kids vaccinated and protected against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Misinformation about Aluminum in Vaccines

Why are some parents afraid of aluminum in vaccines, sometimes going so far as asking their pediatrician to order vaccines with lower levels of aluminum or only wanting to give their child one aluminum containing vaccine at a time?

It is likely a safe bet that they are getting the idea from Dr. Bob Sears, who goes on and on about the possible dangers of aluminum, all of the while using a reference that concludes that “we found no evidence that aluminum salts in vaccines cause any serious or long-lasting adverse events.”

Dr. Bob once wrote an article for Mothering Magazine, “Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?” He seems to be working hard to make sure that it is, as a source of fear for parents who want to follow his non-standard, parent-selected, delayed protection vaccine schedule.

What To Know about Aluminum in Vaccines

Aluminum is an ingredient that is safe and helps vaccines work better.

More Information About Aluminum in Vaccines

Updated on April 6, 2017