Health Articles

1. Vaccines can give you the disease they’re trying to prevent

All vaccines are designed to interact with your body’s immune system to trigger a similar protective response than if you were to catch a virus naturally.

The main ingredient of traditional vaccines is the antigen, a weakened or killed form of the virus, toxin or bacteria. Upon injection, the body learns to fight off the weakened harmful cells with antibodies quicker than it would be able to ward off a natural strain. The body does this so quickly and easily that symptoms are not given the time to show.

Many people refuse to have vaccinations because there is evidence to suggest that many of those who get sick during outbreaks have been actually been vaccinated. This is mostly down to the efficacy of vaccines. To ensure that they are safe for administration, scientists reduce the 100% effectiveness of the original virus strain; jabs then to be around 85% effective - so some inoculated people will get sick!

It is also important to remember that in most high-income countries, the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated huge - so the balance is already disproportionate.

2. Better hygiene and sanitation can get rid of disease - so there’s no need for vaccines

Anti-vax literature often claims that ‘diseases were fought off before inoculation was widespread, so why do we need them today when we have better drugs and cleanliness?’ 

It's true that better sanitation, increased socioeconomic levels, nutrition and new medicines have all played a significant role in the reduction of global disease transmission. But it's also a fact that these improvements cannot be relied on to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria and viruses in the same way that vaccinations can. 

Nearly all cases of preventable diseases have dropped significantly since the introduction of a vaccine. Take the DTaP vaccination as an example. Before mass vaccination programs were introduced, 100,000 cases of diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus occurred each year in the US. After the introduction of a vaccine, the incidence of these diseases reduced to between 1 and 5000 cases per year.

We only have to look at the increase in MMR cases in recent years to see that jabs work. In 2019, the UK lost its measles eradication status and both the NHS and WHO have put this down to the year-on-year decrease in vaccination uptake since 2013. Between 2018 and 2019, the percentage of children receiving both doses of the MMR vaccine reduced to below the WHO target of 95%, which resulted in 5,042 cases in 2019 - four times the number in 2019.

3. Vaccines can cause long-lasting, harmful side effects

Vaccines can cause short-term side effects like a sore arm and fever. Longer-term or more serious issues like anaphylaxis (allergic reaction) or increased bruising effect anywhere from 1 per 1,000 to 1 per 1,000,000 doses. These side effects happen so infrequently that they often cannot be assessed by scientists and healthcare professionals. 

Anti-vax misinformation says that swine flu vaccinations cause Guillain-Barré syndrome - a condition that sees your immune system attack your nerves. It has been proven that only one in one million people who receive the vaccine contracted the condition. Considering the syndrome affects between 0.8 to 1.9 per 100,000 people per year naturally, the benefits of receiving the vaccination far outweigh the risks. 

The DTP vaccine has also been a cause for concern in parents in the past due to the spread of misinformation linking it to sudden infant death syndrome. (SIDS). People often point towards the proximity of time between when children are given their Diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis shot and the age at which SIDS is likely to happen. Numerous investigations set out to disprove this in the 1980s and with strong controls and strict measures, multiple reports concluded that that the number of SIDS deaths supposedly associated with DTP vaccination was comfortably within the range of chance. This means that the deaths caused by SIDS would have occurred whether the child had been administered the vaccine or not. 

4. Vaccines cause health issues in children

Every parent wants what is best for their children so myths linking vaccines to autism, brain damage and other behavioural difficulties often push them into a panic. But you can rest easy knowing that these theories have been disproved time and time again. 

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention sets it out plainly: ‘there is no link between autism and vaccines.’ 

Andrew Wakefield hit the headlines in 1998 after falsely claiming that there was a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Scientists have compared the behavioural differences between children who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t, tested specific vaccine ingredients and investigated the effects of receiving multiple inoculations within a short period to prove that this is not true.

A landmark study that disproved Wakefield’s study was completed by the University of Copenhagen and Stanford University School of Medicine in 2019. Researchers undertook a nationwide study in Denmark where 650,000 children were monitored until they were around 8-years-old. Only 0.93% of them developed autism. The study found that there was no difference in the rates of autism between those who had been vaccinated and those who hadn’t, even in children considered to be at a higher risk of autism due to hereditary ties. 

5. ‘Natural’ or herd immunity is better than vaccine-based immunity

Like social distancing, furlough and self-isolation, herd immunity has fully inserted itself into public vocabulary this year. However, adopting natural herd immunity in the battle against Covid-19 is not safer than adopting vaccine-based immunity and could prove fatal for the public.

So, what exactly is herd immunity? 

‘It refers to the indirect protection susceptible individuals experience because a substantial proportion of those they come into are immune to infection,’ explains Christyl Donnelley, Professor of Applied Statistics at the University of Oxford and a member of the British vaccine task force. 

A lack of knowledge surrounding the new strain of coronavirus, the second wave and the virus’ high infectivity are only a few of the factors that increase the dangers of adopting natural herd immunity against Covid-19. 

Evidence shows that adopting natural herd immunity to combat this virus would not work due to the amount of time it would take. It is believed that only 7% of the population achieved immunity in the first-wave of the coronavirus despite mass, widespread infection. This means it would take 14 ‘waves’ for the British population to become immune to the virus. 

Donnelley tells talkhealth that waiting for a vaccine roll-out is the safest option: ‘There are serious risks associated with COVID-19, a disease which has killed more than one million people worldwide. Thus, to seek herd immunity through infecting a large portion of the population would be to risk lives through the disease itself and due to healthcare facilities becoming overwhelmed.’ 

6. Vaccines are full of unsafe chemicals and toxins

Anti-vaxxers often turn to the ingredients of vaccinations to add fuel to their fire, with claims that they are full of secret, harmful ingredients that people don’t know about. 

Other than the weakened form of the virus, traditional vaccines are made up of these other ingredients: 

• Adjuvants, the catalyst: Sometimes our body needs a helping hand along the way and these molecules or compounds help to boost our immune response and improve the effectiveness of a jab. 
• Preservatives, the chemical fridge: We put our food in the fridge to make sure it keeps for as long as possible, so why wouldn’t we treat vaccines similarly? Preservatives are compounds that are key to ensuring that the vaccine remains effective. 
• Stabilisers, the leveller: Often made from gelatin, stabilisers ensure that the efficacy of a vaccine is maintained in storage or transportation. They are particularly important in the global vaccine initiatives that are happening today as they protect the active ingredients in the vaccine from changes in temperature and other environmental factors.

These ingredients can vary from vaccine to vaccine. This has caused scepticism to rear its head in the past with people resisting vaccines that include traces of mercury and formaldehyde.

Thimerosal is a form of mercury that is used as a preservative in multi-dose flu vaccinations. It is vital for preventing the growth of bacterial or fungal material in vaccines but it is removed from most vaccines before administration. Formaldehyde is found in all life forms. The gas is primarily used to inactivate live viruses to ensure that they are safe for humans on injection. After weakening the virus, a purification process removes almost all traces of it from the vaccine leaving a maximum dose of 0.02% which is several hundred times lower than the amount known to harm people.

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