The Truth About Vaccines

Yesterday we asked your views on vaccines, and we got an interesting spread of answers. Of those who responded to the poll, most were in favour of vaccines. We got quite a lot of comments this time too; we can’t feature them all, but we’ll include extracts from a few in our article today, as they raised interesting points!

Vaccines contain dangerous ingredients that will harm us more than the disease would: True or False?

False, contextually.

Many people are very understandably wary of things they know full well to be toxic, being injected into them.

One subscriber who voted for “Vaccines are poison, and/or are some manner of conspiracy ” wrote:

❝I think vaccines from 50–60 years ago are true vaccines and were safer than vaccines today. I have not had a vaccine for many, many years, and I never plan to have any kind of vaccine/shot again.❞

They didn’t say why they personally felt this way, but the notion that “things were simpler back in the day” is a common (and often correct!) observation regards health, especially when it comes to unwanted additives and ultraprocessing of food.

Things like aluminum or mercury in vaccines are much like sodium and chlorine in table salt. Sodium and chlorine are indeed both toxic to us. But in the form of sodium chloride, it’s a normal part of our diet, provided we don’t overdo it.

Additionally, the amount of unwanted metals (e.g. aluminum, mercury) in vaccines is orders of magnitude smaller than the amount in dietary sources—even if you’re a baby and your “dietary sources” are breast milk and/or formula milk.

In the case of formaldehyde (an inactivating agent), it’s also the dose that makes the poison (and the quantity in vaccines is truly miniscule).

This academic paper alone cites more sources than we could here without making today’s newsletter longer than it already is:

Vaccine Safety: Myths and Misinformation

I have a perfectly good immune system, it can handle the disease: True or False?

True! Contingently.

In fact, our immune system is so good at defending against disease, that the best thing we can do to protect ourselves is show our immune system a dead or deactivated version of a pathogen, so that when the real pathogen comes along, our immune system knows exactly what it is and what to do about it.

In other words, a vaccine.

One subscriber who voted for “Vaccines are important but in some cases the side effects can be worse ” wrote:

❝In some ways I’m vacd out. I got COVid a few months ago and had no symptoms except a cough. I have asthma and it didn’t trigger a lot of congestion. No issues. I am fully vaccinated but not sure I’ll get one in fall.❞

We’re glad this subscriber didn’t get too ill! A testimony to their robust immune system doing what it’s supposed to, after being shown a recent-ish edition of the pathogen, in deactivated form.

It’s very reasonable to start wondering: “surely I’m vaccinated enough by now”

And, hopefully, you are! But, as any given pathogen mutates over time, we eventually need to show our immune system what the new version looks like, or else it won’t recognize it.

See also: Why Experts Think You’ll Need a COVID-19 Booster Shot in the Future

So why don’t we need booster shots for everything? Often, it’s because a pathogen has stopped mutating at any meaningful rate. Polio is an example of this—no booster is needed for most people in most places.

Others, like flu, require annual boosters to keep up with the pathogens.

Herd immunity will keep us safe: True or False?

True! Ish.

But it doesn’t mean what a lot of people think it means. For example, in the UK, “herd immunity” was the strategy promoted by Prime Minister of the hour, Boris Johnson. But he misunderstood what it meant:

• What he thought it meant: everyone gets the disease, then everyone who doesn’t die is now immune
• What it actually means: if most people are immune to the disease (for example: due to having been vaccinated), it can’t easily get to the people who aren’t immune

One subscriber who voted for “Vaccines are critical for our health; vax to the max! ” wrote:

❝I had a chiropractor a few years ago, who explained to me that if the general public took vaccines, then she would not have to vaccinate her children and take a risk of having side effects❞

Obviously, we can’t speak for this subscriber’s chiropractor’s children, but this raises a good example: some people can’t safely have a given vaccine, due to underlying medical conditions—or perhaps it is not available to them, for example if they are under a certain age.

In such cases, herd immunity—other people around having been vaccinated and thus not passing on the disease—is what will keep them safe.

Here’s a useful guide from the US Dept of Health and Human Services:

How does community immunity (a.k.a. herd immunity) work?

And, for those who are more visually inclined, here’s a graphical representation of a mathematical model of how herd immunity works (you can run a simulation)!

Stay safe!