Then and Now — Aluminum in Vaccines
Kids are getting more protection with vaccines that cause fewer side effects.
Are you tired of those Then and Now type photos that keep popping up on Facebook? Of course, you aren’t. Here is one using vaccine schedules!
And just for kicks, let’s take a look at how much aluminum kids used to get from their vaccines back in the day.
Then and Now — Aluminum in Vaccines
After all, one of the common arguments of anti-vaccine influencers is that kids today get too many vaccines, right? And it is all of these vaccines that are responsible for all of their chronic health problems, right? Vaccines that contain too much thimerosal aluminum?
Right off the bat, looking at the immunization schedule from 1960, the first thing that you can see is that kids used to get many more vaccines than people are typically led to believe.
By 1960, children were already getting multiple doses of at least four vaccines, including DPT, DT, polio, and smallpox.
But let’s just look at the vaccines for infants, DPT and polio, and their aluminum content.
(We will focus on infants because anti-vaccine influencers often claim that vaccines cause SIDS, which by definition only includes infants up to 12 months of age.)
This schedule in 1960 gave infants:
polio vaccines = no aluminum
3 doses of DPT vaccines at 0.625 mg of aluminum each = 1.88 mg (plus thimerosal!)
Versus the vaccines on today’s schedule, where most infants get:
rotavirus vaccines = no aluminum
3 doses of pneumococcal vaccines with 0.125 mg of aluminum each = 0.375 mg
3 doses of Vaxelis (DTaP, IPV, Hib, hepB) with 0.32 mg of aluminum each = 0.96 mg
flu vaccines = no aluminum
COVID vaccines = no aluminum
For a total of 1.34 mg of aluminum by the time they are a year old.
Even considering the extra birth dose of hepB vaccine when using a combination vaccine, it’s less aluminum for infants from today’s immunization schedule than they got from the 1960 immunization schedule! A schedule that also gave infants vaccines with thimerosal!
What if you used other combination vaccines, like Pediarix or Pentacel?
Infants today could get a little more aluminum if using a schedule with Pediarix (2.93 mg) or Pentacel (2.06 mg), but still no thimerosal. And certainly not enough extra to account for all the vaccine injuries that anti-vaccine influencers blame on aluminum!
And it would still be less aluminum (and thimerosal) than kids got in 1995!
polio vaccines = no aluminum
3 doses of DPT vaccines at 0.625 mg of aluminum each = 1.88 mg (plus thimerosal!)
3 doses of hepB vaccines at 0.25 mg of aluminum each = 0.75 mg (plus thimerosal!)
2 doses of Hib vaccines at 0.225 mg of aluminum each = 0.45 mg
For a total of 3.1 mg of aluminum by the time they were a year old.
Then and Now — Antigens in Vaccines
But that’s not the whole story.
Let’s look back at the 1960s immunization schedule again.
Remember, in addition to a polio shot, kids got the DPT and smallpox vaccines, neither of which is used today.
Smallpox has been eradicated, of course, and we use the newer DTaP vaccine instead.
Why does that matter?
Because it means that kids are getting far fewer antigens from vaccines today, even though they are getting more vaccines.
After all, it is these antigens in vaccines that triggers an immune response, activates your immune system, and leads to the creation of antibodies.
And unfortunately, sometimes leads to the side effects we see when you get a vaccine.
“Increasing the antigen dose may induce stronger immune responses but may also cause higher levels of reactogenicity.”
The how’s and what’s of vaccine reactogenicity
While the adjuvant type and dose might also be a factor in whether you have a side effect, the antigen dose is clearly a major factor.
So let’s compare the antigen counts from the 1960s immunization schedule to what kids get today.
They got:
smallpox vaccine - 200 antigens → not given anymore
DPT vaccine - 3,002 antigens → replaced by DTaP vaccine with only 7 antigens!
Interestingly, if you add up all the vaccines kids get today, the antigen count still doesn’t reach 200, what they used to get from one smallpox vaccine.
If you add up all the doses of those vaccines, the antigen count doesn’t reach what they would get from a single DPT vaccine! In fact, it is less than 25% of one DPT vaccine.
Then and Now — Vaccines
So kids are actually getting less aluminum, no thimerosal, fewer antigens, and more protection from their vaccines!
It’s no wonder that vaccines are clearly not associated with SIDS, autism, or any of the other so-called vaccine-induced diseases.
It’s time to stop listening to anti-vaccine influencers who are trying to scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.
(To be clear though, you don’t have to count up the amount of aluminum in the vaccines your child gets. Whichever vaccine your child gets is safe, with few risks, and necessary.)
References
The how’s and what’s of vaccine reactogenicity https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-019-0132-6
Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System? https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/109/1/124/79755/Addressing-Parents-Concerns-Do-Multiple-Vaccines