VACCINE BASICS

Vaccine Basics: The Truth About Vaccines

The Chinese were using inoculation over a 1,000 years ago in an attempt to protect people from the scourge of small pox. Those early physicians would make a scratch on a person’s arm or leg and then rub fluid from the pox pustules into the broken skin. Another method involved blowing infected dust from scabs into the nostrils of a healthy individual. The first record of an injection of a weakened form of small pox was by a British physician, Edward Jenner, in the 18th century. 

D. S. Mitchell

An Army

Any regular reader of this website knows that I am a retired RN. And as such, health and wellness issues are an important part of the information I share on this site. The COVID-19 pandemic brought out an army of anti-vaxxers, led by a-holes like RFK, Jr. There’s a guy despised by his family and recognized world wide as a “nut cake,” but even someone as despised and discredited as Kennedy has followers. Just because his dad was famous and cool does not mean he passed any of that charisma, intellect, or personality on to his children, particularly junior, in this case.

A Veritable Quandary

I don’t understand it. During my life time vaccines have nearly caused us to forget the severe outbreaks of “childhood diseases” including polio, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, rubella, mumps, whooping cough, rotavirus, smallpox, measles, and more. Vaccines save money. If you don’t care about the human cost, there is the financial cost of infectious diseases on our country. The CDC estimates that inoculation against measles has saved the United States $295 billion in hospital costs and $1.4 trillion in societal costs over a 15 year span, according to an article in the August 2020  Prevention magazine, by Jennifer Wolff

Whatever

Fear, misinformation, and superstition are all drivers of the anti-vax movement. Because of all the screaming and hollering and the threats against Dr. Fauci, I thought now might be as good a time as any to provide a short refresher course on what vaccines are and what they are not.

Vaccine Basics:

The Truth About Vaccines

1.  Immunity: When we are strong and healthy our bodies have a powerful immune system that works hard to protect us from disease. When attacked by a virus or bacteria our bodies manufacture antibodies to fight the infection. Once the illness passes and the body recovers the body remembers the infection code in memory cells and if confronted with the disease again the antibodies go to work and prevent re-infection, thus creating natural ‘immunity’.  A vaccine builds antibodies by purposely introducing the disease into the body in a form that is either dead or weakened to such a degree that the disease is harmless.  Vaccines for Hepatitis A, rabies, and polio are created with dead virus while the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), chicken pox, and rotavirus are made from weakened virus-strong enough to create the immune response but not powerful enough to make the recipient seriously ill.
2. Sore Arm: The typical warning is that post injection recipients may notice feeling “funky” with a low grade fever or headache for a day or two after the injection and/or arm pain at the injection site. Medical experts consider it a good sign for a client to feel crappy because it is an indicator that the body is building immunity to the disease. An additive used in some vaccines called an adjuvant, can also produce similar symptoms of illness.
3. You And The Community: Vaccination safeguards you and those around you. If enough people are inoculated then there is not the fear of a widespread outbreak. Very contagious viruses such as measles require 95% of people to be vaccinated to prevent outbreaks. Polio is less contagious and needs 80-85% community inoculation.
4. Not The Same: Because no two viruses are the same, no two vaccines are alike. Some vaccines require more than one dose to create an immune response. Tetanus as an example requires several injections to build immunity then a booster every decade. With the “flu shot” updates are needed annually because of the rate the virus mutates. There are 30 million cases of flu each year in the United States with at least 65,000 deaths.
5. Saves Lives: Between 2000 and 2014 the death rate from measles fell 79% worldwide, sparing 17 million lives. Unfortunately, as more and more people resisted immunization, measles deaths increased dramatically.
6. No Relationship: The government, the medical and pharmaceutical industries have taken the claims that vaccines cause autism in children extremely seriously. Numerous studies have been conducted worldwide. Anti-vaxxers make 3 major claims: (1) MMR vaccine has caused autism in otherwise healthy children, (2) that autism is caused by thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative  that was removed twenty-five years ago from children’s vaccines, (3) too many vaccines too soon, overwhelming their young bodies and resulting in autism. Based on review of 18 studies in seven countries, across three continents on hundreds of thousands of kids not one has shown a link to vaccines and autism. As the Autism Science Foundation stated, “There is no data showing a relationship between vaccines and autism.”

Bibliography:

Wolff, Jennifer, Prevention Magazine, “10 Things To Know About Vaccines,” August, 2020.

Priya, Joi, Gavi.org, “Vaccines Explained,” April 28, 2021