What's in a vaccine?

VACCINES! Are they good!? Or are they bad? And why is there such an intense division about the damn things!? Do I have to pick a side? What about my children? People are telling me it will kill them! Others are telling me that if I don’t get it, they will die!!!!!

This is ONLY about what is in it, and what it does. I’m not going to tell you what to do here, free will is yours! To be as impartial as possible I will go through the WHAT? and the HOW? and then the WHY?

I believe that people can only do the best with what they have. In terms of resources or even knowledge. The less you have, the less you are able to work with. Some people have even been lied to, or guided under false pretenses.

There are lots of people, and groups out there who will gladly guide you astray to support their agenda. All I care about is the truth. I am writing this article because I believe that, someone out there will genuinely need this resource.

The academic literature is often written in a way that is hard for people to understand and make sense of, so I’ve gone through it for you!

SO…

Let’s start with the basics – WHAT IS A VACCINE?

Oxford dictionary describes it as “A substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease”.

Lets break it down… and make it simple!!!

Take a look at a list of ingredients from a typical meningococcal vaccine… and then explain what the ingredients are and what they do….

VACCINE INGREDIENTS:

1.) Antigens: Depending on the type of vaccine, antigens are dead or weakened particles of the disease. This teaches your immune system how to fight off the disease. e.g. rotavirus, chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella vaccine viruses. – These vaccines contain KILLED parts of the disease. (www.immune.org.nz). Subunit vaccines have proteins, toxoids or sugars (polysaccharides), derived from the disease-causing organism.

There are also additives in vaccines that may include:

2.) Adjuvant: encourages an immune response to the antigen (dead virus or disease).

No vaccines currently used in New Zealand contain the oil-inwater emulsion MF59 or the AS03 and AS04 adjuvants.

Excipients A: active ingredients included in the manufacturing process which (depending on the manufacturer) may include:

3.) Preservatives –such as 2-phenoxyethanol - these stop unwanted microbial contamination of vaccines. You can find Phenoxyethanolin in every day products such as insect repellent; antiseptic; dyes, inks, resins; a pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, lubricants.

4.) Stabilisers - inhibit chemical reactions and prevent components separating or sticking to the vial during transport and storage. For example: sugars such as lactose and sucrose, amino acids such as glycine and monosodium glutamate (salts of amino acids), proteins such as recombinant human albumin - derived from baker’s yeast or (cow) serum and gelatin, partially hydrolysed collagen of pig or cow.

5.) Buffers: used to resist changes in pH levels, such as monopotassium phosphate and sodium borate. The most commonly used ionic compound is what we know as regular as table salt.

6.) Surfactants preventing settling and clumping by lowering the surface tension of the liquid. You can find these ingredients in foods such as ice cream and also toothpastes, inks and fabric softeners.

7.) Solvents: a substance that dissolves another substance, creating a solution. This is OFTEN JUST WATER.

8.) Residuals: are the remaining minute quantities of substances that have been used during the manufacturing or production process of individual vaccines. Depending on the process used, which may have involved cell culture mediums, egg proteins, yeast, antibiotics such as neomycin or streptomycin, or inactivating agents such as formaldehyde. Only traceable in parts per million.

9.) Diluents: a liquid used to dilute a vaccine to the proper concentration immediately prior to administration. This is usually JUST WATER.

10.) Aluminium Salts - these are usually either aluminium hydroxide, aluminium phosphate and potassium aluminium sulphate (alum). They function to retain the antigen at the injection site long enough for an immune cells and a range of inflammatory factors to the local injection site to enhance the immune response. Aluminium is probably one of the MOST common metals and present in almost everything already.

So now that you know what is in a vaccine. I hope it’s a little less scary and easy to understand.

We have now covered the WHAT? And the HOW? Let’s move onto the WHY?

WHY DO PEOPLE VACCINATE?

There are many diseases that have been almost eliminated entirely through vaccination. There is something called HERD IMMUNITY. This means that the more people that are protected against the disease, the less likely it is for this disease to occur. Through vaccination, we give less of an opportunity for the disease to be carried or passed on. POLIO, has been successfully tackled in the developed world through vaccines. Our great grandparents generation were at a very high risk of catching and even dying from polio, but thanks to vaccines – You probably have never met or heard of anyone having polio in this lifetime.

RISKS

You’ve probably seen stories about bad reactions? And I’m not going to tell you that a vaccine is risk free for everyone – just as some people have an anaphylactic (allergic) reaction to peanuts or shellfish (yes people can die from eating peanuts) – there are a few (3 out of a million to be precise) people who will react badly to a vaccine.

I will just leave it here and keep it as simple as possible. Feel free to do your own research and harbour criticism until you get an answer that really makes sense to you. Whether you choose to vaccinate or not is your choice.

References

Bearman, P. (2010). Just-so stories: Vaccines, autism, and the single-bullet disorder. Social psychology quarterly, 73(2), 112-115.

Goetz, K. B., Pfleiderer, M., & Schneider, C. K. (2010). First-in-human clinical trials with vaccines—what regulators want. Nature biotechnology, 28(9), 910

Fan, Y., & Moon, J. (2015). Nanoparticle drug delivery systems designed to improve cancer vaccines and immunotherapy. Vaccines, 3(3), 662-685.

Jacob, M., Bradley, J., & Barone, M. A. (2005). Human papillomavirus vaccines: what does the future hold for preventing cervical cancer in resource-poor settings through immunization programs?. Sexually transmitted diseases, 32(10), 635-640.

Kalinski, P., Urban, J., Narang, R., Berk, E., Wieckowski, E., & Muthuswamy, R. (2009). Dendritic cell-based therapeutic cancer vaccines: what we have and what we need.