A short overview on the safety of vaccines from the biggest Western database for scientific medical studies, PubMed:
"Some people worry that vaccines are not safe and may be harmful, especially for children. They may ask their health care provider to wait or even choose not to have the vaccine. But the benefits of vaccines far outweigh their risks.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Institute of Medicine all conclude that the benefits of vaccines outweigh their risks.
Vaccines, such as the measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, and nasal spray flu vaccines contain live but weakened viruses:
- Unless a person's immune system is weakened, it is unlikely that a vaccine will give the person the infection. Persons with weakened immune systems should not receive these live vaccines.
- These live vaccines may be dangerous to the fetus of a pregnant woman. To avoid harm to the baby, pregnant women should not receive any of these vaccines. The health care provider can tell you the right time to get these vaccines.
Thimerosal is a preservative that was found in most vaccines in the past. But now:
- Only one third of flu shots still have thimerosal.
- NO other vaccines commonly used for children or adults contain thimerosal.
Research done over many years has NOT shown any link between thimerosal and autism, or other medical problems.
Allergic reactions are rare and are usually to some part (component) of the vaccine."
- taken from
Vaccines (immunizations) - overviewIf you check the article's sources, you'll see that this info is backed up by various sound medical studies. Only after becoming a medical student I have come to understand how important vaccines are and what it means for people not to get the right immunisations at an early age.
1) If 95% or more of the general population is immunised through vaccination, even the remaining 5% and less (children, pregnant women and elderly) are protected from infections by the vaccinations for the germs go extinct due to the lack of possible hosts. This is called heard immunity and thanks to this mechanism, we were able to eradicate great endemic infectious diseases like smallpox which had plagued humanity for thousands of years.
2) People in industrial nations have become so well-protected from most severe infections (due to the increasing success of vaccinations, good hygiene and effective medication during the past 200 years) that they underestimate both the danger of serious infections and the danger of not being exposed to harmless forms of many infections. It may sound confusing, but let me elaborate:
Vaccinations do not only protect people from great infectious diseases (see above), they may even contribute to the correct development of a person's immune system. The human body has to contract and overcome infections in order teach its immune system how to function. If it doesn't learn to discern harmful germs from harmless ones because it didn't come into sufficient contact with various kinds of germs, the immune system may become prone to auto-immune diseases and allergies, as various studies indicate.
Nowadays, infections have become rare in comparison to the past 1800+ years, and the immune system often doesn't get enough infections to be able to practice and mature in the right way. Therefore, harmless forms of germs like the ones they use for vaccines are a good and comparatively safe way to help strengthening and developing a child's inexperienced immune system.
3) As for the vaccines' own allergene-sensitising potential, only a small number of people react in an allergic way to certain components in some vaccines, and only an even smaller number suffers severe implications. In comparison to those few, a serious infection does not only burden its original host with grave, long-lasting or letal health defects, which they may or may not overcome with strenuous therapy, but it also endanger those dear to them.
Example: The dangerous herpes zoster disease can only break out in people who have been infected by the chicken pox or varicella zoster virus before as it develops from the varicella virus which stays in a formerly infected's body for their whole life. In contrast to the seemingly harmless chicken pox, the herpes-zoster rash is very painful and long-lasting (from 1 month to chronic). It's affliated with certain spinal nerves which may lead to large-scale, striped eczema. When it heals it often leaves scars in the whole area. By being vaccinated against chicken pox, one can prevent developing herpes zoster completely.
I hope I could provide you with a different perspective.
