Tag: MSG

What Are the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines?

Is it still OK to “debate” vaccines and vaccine safety?

Sure.

pro-con-vaccines
Using fallacious arguments and anti-vaccine propaganda can not be part of any real debate about vaccines.

What’s not up for debate anymore is the idea that vaccines aren’t safe or necessary or that vaccines don’t work.

Folks who use those arguments against vaccines aren’t debating, they are pushing anti-vaccine talking points.

What Are the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines?

Why talk about pro and con arguments if we know that vaccines are safe and necessary?

It’s because vaccines aren’t perfect.

 Pro Con
Vaccines save lives. Shots hurt.
Vaccines are cost effective. Vaccines are expensive.
Vaccines work most of the time. Vaccines aren’t 100% effective.
You are much more likely to get shingles after having a natural chickenpox infection. You can get shingles after having the chickenpox vaccines.
Vaccine preventable diseases are much more likely to cause febrile seizures, non-febrile seizures, and worse. Some vaccines cause febrile seizures.
Most vaccine side effects are mild and they prevent life-threatening diseases. Vaccines aren’t 100% safe.
Vaccines can create herd immunity. Some people can’t be vaccinated.
Kids can get protected against at least 16 vaccine-preventable diseases. Kids get at least 13 different vaccines.
Immunity from some vaccine preventable diseases isn’t lifelong either and some diseases, like tetanus, don’t even provide immunity. Immunity from some vaccines isn’t lifelong.
Some vaccine-preventable diseases, like polio, only provide protection against a single serotype, not against all forms of the disease (there are three serotypes of polio). Some vaccines require booster doses.
Fewer people die from vaccine preventable diseases these days because most people are vaccinated and protected. No one dies from measles anymore.

And sometimes it doesn’t make sense to recommend a vaccine, except in specific circumstances.

“A MenB vaccine series may be administered to adolescents and young adults aged 16–23 years to provide short-term protection against most strains of serogroup B meningococcal disease. The preferred age for MenB vaccination is 16–18 years.”

ACIP on Use of Serogroup B Meningococcal Vaccines in Adolescents and Young Adults: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, 2015

The MenB vaccine, for example, unlike most other vaccines, only has a permissive recommendation – parents may get it for their kids, but they don’t have to.

“First-year college students living in residence halls should receive at least 1 dose of MenACWY before college entry. The preferred timing of the most recent dose is on or after their 16th birthday.”

ACIP on Prevention and Control of Meningococcal Disease: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices

In contrast, the recommendation for most other vaccines state that kids “should” receive them.

Why the difference?

Experts aren’t yet sure that the pros of the MenB vaccine, helping avoid MenB disease, outweigh the cons, which include the high cost of the vaccine, short duration of protection, and that it doesn’t cover all MenB subtypes. The cons aren’t about safety.

The Real Vaccine Cons

What about the “cons” you see on some websites about toxins, vaccine-induced diseases, and vaccine deaths?

Beware of folks trying use anti-vaccine talking points to scare or con you when talking about vaccines.
Beware of folks trying use anti-vaccine talking points to scare or con you when talking about vaccines.

This is when it becomes helpful to understand that the word “con” has multiple definitions.

vaccine-conThese sites use anti-vaccine experts and other anti-vaccine websites as sources, present anecdotes as real evidence, and cherry pick quotes when they do use real sources.

They also work hard to:

Worst of all, they talk about informed consent and choice, all of the while taking away many parents’ choice to make an informed decision by confusing them with misinformation, myths, and propaganda.

Of course, parents who have taken the time to get educated about vaccines don’t fall for any of these arguments.

They know that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that vaccines work, vaccines are safe, and vaccines are necessary.

What to Know About the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines

In any real debate, getting vaccinated and protected wins every time, because vaccines work and they are safe and necessary.

More About the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines

Stabilizers in Vaccines

Some vaccines contain stabilizers “to help the vaccine remain unchanged when the vaccine is exposed to heat, light, acidity, or humidity.”

Stabilizers in Vaccines

These stabilizers might include monosodium glutamate (MSG), glycine, gelatin, 2-phenoxy-ethanol, lactose, sucrose, or human or bovine serum albumin.

None of stabilizers are toxic or dangerous.

They include amino acids, sugars, and proteins.

More on Stabilizers in Vaccines

Vaccine Ingredients

From antigens and adjuvants to preservatives, learn about common ingredients in vaccines and why they are safe.

What’s in Vaccines?

It is no secret what’s in our vaccines.

A list of ingredients is included on the vaccine’s package insert and can be found on a number of articles on the Internet.

In addition to other ingredients, a vaccine's package insert includes the viral or bacterial antigens that are in the vaccine.
In addition to other ingredients, a vaccine’s package insert includes the viral or bacterial antigens that are in the vaccine.

In addition to the active ingredients, the viral or bacterial antigens in the vaccine that you generate antibodies against, vaccines are made with a number of excipients, inactive substances or manufacturing by-products that are used to produce the vaccine:

  • preservatives – prevent bacterial and fungal contamination in multi-dose vials – thimerosal, 2-phenoxyethanol, phenol
  • adjuvants – help stimulate a stronger immune response so fewer antigens can be used – aluminum salts
  • stabilizers – maintain the potency of the vaccine and include sugars, amino acids, and proteins – lactose, MSG, gelatin
  • cell culture materials – what the vaccine antigens grow in – chicken egg proteins, yeast proteins, fetal bovine serum proteins
  • inactivating materials – kills viruses, inactivates toxins – formaldehyde
  • antibiotics – prevents bacterial contamination of the vaccine – neomycin, polymyxin B
  • suspending fluid – saline, etc.

Many of these excipients are removed from the final vaccine product and might only remain in residual amounts.

What’s Not in Vaccines?

Despite what myths you might have heard or read, many things are not in vaccines:

  • a vaginal spermacide
  • antifreeze
  • thimerosal – almost all vaccines, including over 130,000,000 flu vaccines this year, are thimerosal free!
  • aborted fetal tissue – there is no aborted fetal tissue or fetal parts in any vaccine, although some vaccines are made with fetal embryo fibroblast cells from cell lines that are derived (they can replicate infinitely) from two electively terminated pregnancies in the 1960s
  • Adjuvant 65 – an adjuvant that contained peanut oil that was tested with flu vaccines in the 1960s and continues to be blamed for causing peanut allergies, even though it has never been used in a vaccine

Vaccines are safe. Vaccine ingredients are safe.

What to Know About Vaccine Ingredients

Vaccines contain a number of ingredients that help them work stimulate a good immune response against particular viral and bacterial antigens to protect us against vaccine-preventable diseases.

More on Vaccine Ingredients