Since its invention in 1796, vaccines have helped save millions of lives each year and is now seen as key to the fight against infectious diseases worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccinations are one of the safest healthcare interventions in the history of modern medicine and help save two to three million deaths each year across the globe.
But in some parts of the world, some self-promoting scholars and leaders raise objections to vaccines and consequently put at risk the lives and future livelihood of tens of thousands of innocent children. One falsehood often perpetrated by these ‘scholars’ is that vaccines contain ingredients that destroy fertility and that vaccination programs are intended to wipe out the community.
Here we take a look at some of the ingredients that go into vaccines.
As with any other product manufactured for the market, vaccines too have a whole list of adjuvants, stabilizers, preservatives and other ingredients added to its base component so as to enhance its efficacy, and ensure its shelf life.
The base component in any vaccine against a particular virus is a tiny amount of the live or inactivated pathogen, or at least a part of it. When the vaccine is injected, this component triggers the immune system to launch a series of events designed to protect against an attack by the pathogen in future.
In addition to the base component, vaccines contain preservatives, stabilizers, traces of material that were used to produce the vaccine and adjuvants. Together, these additional ingredients are technically termed as excipients.
Adjuvants are compounds that are added to elicit a strong immune response thereby improving how well a vaccine works. Some such adjuvants include metals, oils and biological molecules. Preservatives, such as Thimerosal, are primarily used in vaccines that come in multidose vials. Thimerosal kills bacteria and fungi that may contaminate a vaccine.
Stabilizers, such as Gelatin, are used in some vaccines to protect the active ingredient. Other stabilizers include the sweetener sorbitol and the sugar molecules sucrose and lactose. Meanwhile, emulsifiers, such as Polysorbate 80, help other components in vaccine to remain soluble.
Bacteria or viruses needed for vaccine manufacture are often grown in large numbers before undergoing purification and then attenuation or inactivation during the production process. Although most of the materials used during this expansion phase will be present in trace amounts or not at all in the final product, they may feature on the list of ingredients.
All of the excipients that are added to vaccines are fully approved by the WHO and other medicine monitoring agencies in respective countries before they can go into production or into the distribution network. Moreover, nearly all of the excipients commonly used in vaccines have been used as preservatives, stabilizers and emulsifiers by the food industry and other industries for a long time.
The worries spread by the so-called ‘scholars’ about the intentions behind giving vaccines to children are not only unfounded, they also sometimes cause irreversible damage to the long-term health of children.
