5 POPULAR MYTHS
ABOUT VACCINATION THAT HAVE BEEN BUSTED
Vaccines contain many harmful ingredients. FALSE!
01
Fact is: Vaccines contain ingredients that allow the product to be safely administer. Vaccines contain ingredients at a dose that is even lower than the dose we are naturally exposed to in our environment.
Thimerosal, a mercury-containing compound, is a widely-used preservative for vaccines that are manufactured in multi-dose vials.
There is no evidence to suggest that the amount of thimerosal used in vaccines poses a health risk. Formaldehyde, another vaccine ingredient, is in automobile exhaust, household products and furnishings such as carpets, upholstery, cosmetics, paint and felt-tip markers, and in health products such as antihistamines, cough drops and mouthwash. The dose in vaccines is much lower than the amount we are exposed to in our daily life.
Vaccines cause autism and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). FALSE!
02
Fact is: Vaccines are very safe. Most vaccine reactions are usually temporary and minor, such as a fever or sore arm. It is rare to experience a very serious health event following a vaccination, but these events are carefully monitored and investigated. You are far more likely to be seriously injured by a vaccine-preventable disease than by a vaccine. For example, polio can cause paralysis, measles can cause encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and blindness, and some vaccine-preventable diseases can even result in death.
Science has not yet determined the cause of autism and SIDS. These diagnoses are made, though, during the same age range that children are receiving their routine immunizations. The 1998 study that raised concerns about a possible link between measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism was retracted by the journal that published it because it was significantly flawed by bad science. There is no evidence to link vaccines as the cause of autism or SIDS.
Vaccines contain many harmful ingredients.
Vaccine-preventable diseases are just part of childhood. It is better to have the disease than become immune through vaccines. FALSE!
03
Fact is: Vaccine-preventable diseases have many serious complications that can be avoided through immunization. For example, more than 226,000 people are hospitalized from influenza complications including 20,000 children. About 36,000 people die from influenza each year.
I don’t need to vaccinate my child because all the other children around him are already immune. FALSE!
04
Fact is: Herd immunity occurs when a large population of a community is immunized against a contagious disease, reducing the chance of an outbreak. Infants, pregnant women and immunocompromised people who cannot receive vaccines depend on this type of protection.
However, if enough people rely on herd immunity as the method of preventing infection from vaccine-preventable diseases, herd immunity will soon disappear.
A child can actually get the disease from a vaccine. FALSE!
05
Fact is: A vaccine causing complete disease would be extremely unlikely. Most vaccines are inactivated (killed) vaccines and it isn’t possible to contract the disease from the vaccine. A few vaccines contain live organisms, and when vaccinated lead to a mild case of the disease. Chickenpox vaccine, for example, can cause a child to develop a rash, but only with a few spots.