Vaccine Ingredients
Do vaccines really contain the horrifying poisons claimed by antivaccine activists?
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Conspiracies, General Science, Health
| Skeptoid #180 November 17, 2009 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
Episode 180, November 17, 2009
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4180
Today we're going to point our skeptical eye at some of the claims made by antivaccine activists, in particular, their lists of frightening chemicals and other dangerous toxins they say are included in vaccines. As it's an important topic and is increasingly in the public eye, we don't want to dismiss these claims out of hand. Rather, we want to have a handy working knowledge of the basics so we're better prepared to deal with such rhetoric when it comes up.
You don't have to go to the antivaccine web sites to find this horrifying list of witch's-brew ingredients. The Centers for Disease Control publishes a detailed list of every additive in every vaccine, sorted both by ingredient and by vaccine. I run my eye down this official list: formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate, ammonium sulfate, bovine extract, thimerosal, amino acids, even monkey kidney tissue. This list is published by the very same government that's assuring us these vaccines are safe. How can that be? Does this mean the antivaccine activists are right, and vaccines are indeed loaded with deadly toxins?
This is a case where cooler heads need to prevail. First, let's start with the premise that every cell of your body is made up of a huge number of chemical compounds, all of which have scary-sounding chemical names. Therefore, we can derive that scary-sounding chemical names, by themselves, are not to be feared. Cooler heads might choose to allow for the possibility that these scary chemicals are added to vaccines because they serve some useful purpose.
When you're exposed to a pathogen, it irritates your body. This irritation is what provokes your immune system to respond, and produce antibodies to fight the pathogen. Vaccines work the same way. They simulate the pathogen in order to produce to right irritation. To prepare your body with the right antibodies to fight some anticipated future pathogen, it's a necessary and expected step for the vaccine to provoke your immune system with a carefully planned challenge. So when you hear antivaxxers charge that vaccines are harmful and irritating, that's quite true, but it's for an important reason and it's very deliberately controlled. This attack on your body to provoke an immunological response is the way vaccines work. It's the way your immune system rolls. You don't strengthen your immune system by eating vitamins or drinking wheatgrass juice or doing yoga or having a coffee enema; you strengthen it by challenging it to respond.
So now that we understand that a vaccine is not pretending to be a shot of Mickey Mouse sunshine, let's take a look at some of these frightening sounding ingredients:
Formaldehyde
Absolutely true. Formaldehyde sounds scary because we see dead animals preserved in jars of it in museums. One of its uses is to sterilize things, and this is why small drops of it are added to some vaccines. Without such sterilization, a vial of vaccine might become contaminated while it's sitting on the shelf. Formaldehyde is used because it's naturally found in the human body, as it's a normal byproduct of digestion and metabolism. When you receive a vaccine shot that was sterilized with formaldehyde, you already have much more of it in your body than you get from the shot. All of this formaldehyde is easily broken down chemically simply because your body is an aqueous environment, and it's harmlessly discharged every day.
Antifreeze
This one is simply untrue. Antifreeze, the poisonous substance used in your car's engine, is ethylene glycol. Because it's so poisonous, antifreeze is not used in food processing or medical equipment, and certainly not in vaccines or other drugs. A less toxic form of antifreeze is propylene glycol, which is not in vaccines either. What is used in some is 2-phenoxyethanol. It's an antibacterial agent used in many vaccines to sterilize them, and also used in wound care as a topical antibacterial. The confusion with antifreeze probably comes from the fact that both are part of the glycol ether family of hydrocarbons, but they are not the same thing.
Mercury
This is the most common claim, and it's the one you've probably heard the most about, so I won't spend much time on it. Some vaccines (but no scheduled childhood vaccines) are preserved with thimerosal, which contains ethylmercury. Elemental mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin, but when it's bound as an organic ethyl, it's easily filtered out of your body by your kidneys and is quickly discharged. This is one reason thimerosal has always been such a safe and popular preservative, and it's still found in many products. Mercury can also be bound as a methyl, which is different, and is much harder for your body to filter out. But fear not; no vaccines or thimerosal ever contained methylmercury, and this scaremongering has no plausible foundation.
Latex Rubber
This one is also completely untrue. Latex is not, in any way, part of any vaccine, and never has been. The source of this claim is the fact that a lot of medical equipment, like syringes and packages, contain latex. Alternatives are always available for people with severe latex allergies. This is a common issue for such people, and has no specific relevance to vaccines whatsoever.
Hydrochloric Acid
Scary sounding, and true. If you pour hydrochloric acid on your skin, you get burned, because your skin is pH balanced. But if you add acid to something that's alkaline, acid brings it back into balance. Hydrochloric acid is used in many industries to bring compounds that are too alkaline to the desired pH level, and the pharmaceutical industry is no different. Some vaccines, once the active ingredients are all added, may be too alkaline; and if injected like that, would cause an adverse reaction. Hydrochloric acid brings the vaccine down to your body's normal pH level of about 7.4. Hydrochloric acid is also the primary digestive acid produced in your stomach, so it's no stranger to the human body.
Aluminum
Aluminum, in various forms, is added to vaccines as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is like a catalyst for the desired irritation, making the challenge even more annoying for your body. It's supposed to be there, on purpose, to make your body react even more strongly. More antibodies are created as a result of the more provocative challenge. Remember: Mickey Mouse sunshine and roses do nothing.
Aluminum is, of course, a neurotoxin, but only at amounts far, far higher than that normally found in our bodies, in the environment, and certainly in vaccines. Just by living and breathing on a planet like Earth where aluminum is the third most abundant element, the average person consumes 3-8mg of aluminum per day, of which less than 1 percent is absorbed into the blood. Vaccine doses are allowed to contain a maximum of .85mg of aluminum; so the maximum dose of aluminum in a vaccine is about the same as the maximum that might get into everyone's blood in a normal day (about what's contained in 33 ounces of infant formula). Most vaccines contain less than this. Studies have proven no difference in neurological condition between children who have had aluminum adjutated vaccines and those who have not.
Aspartame
Once again: FAIL. Completely untrue. Although any search of the web would have you believe otherwise: The phrase "aspartame in vaccines" is all over Google. So what are these vaccines? I searched the CDC's database of vaccines; nothing. I searched the database of additives; still nothing. I only found only antivax article that mentioned specifically which vaccine aspartame is in, and it claimed only one: The typhoid vaccine Typhim Vi. But it's not true. The additives in Typhim Vi are publicly available and aspartame is not on the list. This is when the antivaxxers are at their worst, when they simply make up lies. This is not constructive for any purpose.
Aborted Fetal Tissue
They sure picked the scariest sounding thing they could think of here! Although this specific ingredient is made up, vaccines can include all sorts of proteins derived from all sorts of animals.
Human Serum Albumin, or HSA, is a stabilizing protein made from human blood donations, not from aborted fetuses. Bovine albumin is also used in a few vaccines. Some vaccines are grown in cultures of monkey or chicken kidney tissue, and when the vaccines are extracted, a few cells from the culture always remain. There's never been any evidence that this might be dangerous. Some vaccines are cultured inside chicken eggs, and some egg protein may remain as a result. This can be a problem for people with severe allergies to egg protein, so these people should avoid these vaccines.
You'll hear all sorts of shock stories about embryonic fluid and cells of exotic animals. Be skeptical of such stories, and you are shocked and concerned, spend five minutes searching the web to find out if that ingredient is actually used; and if so, why; and whether it represents any credible cause for concern. I guarantee you that Jenny McCarthy is neither the first person, nor the best informed, to have considered vaccine safety.
Live Viruses
Some viruses don't retain their chemical markers well enough when they're dead in order for the immune system to recognize them, so a very few vaccines are given with the viruses still alive. Formaldehyde is usually used to knock them out, weakening them to the point where they no longer pose a threat, but still alive enough to provoke the desired response. This is not done haphazardly: Finding just the right balance for the vaccine to be effective but not dangerous is hard work.
You'll hear antivaccine activists shout "Green our vaccines!" What do they mean? Are vaccines environmentally unfriendly? What does "being green" have to do with it? Presumably this is a swipe at vaccine additives which they believe are unsafe or damaging to the environment. Sadly it's too vague of a charge to answer directly. Specific claims can be tested; vague rallying cries cannot. This is where the antivaxxers' movement has taken them: Whenever they've attempted to levy a specific, testable claim, it's easily falsified. Don't let a sound byte as meaningless as "Green our vaccines" carry any clout it has not earned.
Many antivaccine activists believe that a healthy diet is all that's needed to guard against disease. Unfortunately, a healthy diet by itself does not present any immunological challenges. No antibodies are created as a result. Then when a pathogen enters the body, the pathogen wins, and the body becomes diseased. If you focus on your diet or your fitness, but ignore your immune system, expect to look slim and run marathons, but don't expect your immune system to be well prepared should you be unlucky enough to run into polio.
© 2009 Skeptoid Media, Inc.
References & Further Reading
AAP. "Vaccine Ingredients." Immunization. American Academy of Pediatrics, 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 25 May. 2011. <http://www.aap.org/immunization/families/ingredients.html>
CDC. "Ingredients of Vaccines - Fact Sheet." CDC. U. S. Federal Government, 19 May 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. <http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm>
Janeway, C., Travers, P., Walport, M., Shlomchik, M.J. Immunobiology. New York: Garland Publishing, 2001. 582-583.
Marshall, Gary. The Vaccine Handbook. West Islip: Professional Communications, Inc., 2008.
Ragupathi G., Yeung K., Leung P., Lee M., Lau C., Vickers A., Hood C., Deng G., Cheung N., Cassileth B., Livingston P. "Evaluation of widely consumed botanicals as immunological adjuvants." Vaccine. 2 Sep. 2008, 26(37): 4860-4865.
Ribeiro C., Schijns V. "Immunology of vaccine adjuvants." Methods Molecular Biology. 1 Jan. 2010, 626: 1-14.
Reference this article:
Dunning, B.
"Vaccine Ingredients." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
17 Nov 2009. Web.
22 May 2013. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4180>
Discuss!
10 most recent comments | Show all 171 comments
I also question the wisdom in a doctor chiming in with such a profoundly scare-mongering and thoroughly off-topic statement O.o yes, Vaccine manufactors should be held accountable but that doesn't make the argument from Brian inherently wrong which is what you seem to be implying.
In an article about vaccine ingredients (titled, Vaccine Ingredients) he explains how the chemicals lack the properties being described by those opposed to their use. You spun this into a claim that all vaccines are safe (A true strawman, if ever I saw one) rather than addressing that this one, focused, issue was examined. Brian never claimed in any way that all vaccines are safe, but a fear of the ingredients was not a logical one.
You may as well point out the dangers of re-using syringes for vaccination.
On the subject of mockery, if I didn't make light of some people I think I'd have to cry at their words or actions. Though I take solace I've not yet turned into Mud.
Jimmy, England
January 24, 2013 6:36am
Any chance that the two of you, Sara and Jimmy, could do me a favour and re-read what I've posted? Would you do that for me?
The reason I ask is because the both of you - albeit, in your own unique style - go off on tangents and end up saying I said things I didn't say. So, if you're wondering about what I'm saying, or feel I haven't been clear, could you please ask me to clarify? I'd appreciate that.
You tell me, Sara, that "you'll have a hard time convincing me that people who choose not to vaccinate their children...is something we should consider." Who's trying to convince you of this? Me? How so? I never said any such thing about childhood vaccines. I spoke specifically of the flu vaccine. Regarding the standard childhood vaccines, I said exactly the opposite.
No, Jimmy, I wasn't implying Brian's argument was wrong; my intention was to add a perspective on where some of the more general fears may originate. I never said, nor implied, that Brian was claiming all vaccines were safe, so actually, I believe I've safely avoided rubbing shoulders with a strawman.
As for my "thoroughly off-topic statement," I did neglect to mention that the adverse effects of the H1N1 vaccine were limited a particular monovalent vaccine containing the adjuvant AS03 - and that, I daresay, is comfortably on-topic, since, by your admission at least, Brian's claim was that "a fear of the ingredients was not a logical one." Perhaps not - unless you got the vaccine with *that* ingredient...
Jennifer, Kingston, Ontario
January 30, 2013 6:40pm
While it may have been your intention, you can surely see how it is easily misconstrued?
Statements such as "Were there any? It turns out there were - but of course that's not the stuff that makes good news" and "vaccines may be a case where caution (rather than just "cool heads") should prevail."
do not engender confidence in medicine.
While I agree that companies who produce vaccines need to be held accountable for the vaccines they produce in the same manner every manufacturer should, I don't think caution is the right word to apply. Caution would make an octogenarian think carefully where they want to run the 'risk' of a flu jab (a discussion I've had multiple times with my grandmother because of statements such as the one you've made been taken the wrong way).
This may not have been your intention (and you have since stated outright it wasn't) but it was not the best worded response in the world which may be why it inspired the replies you recieved.
Jimmy, England
January 31, 2013 3:08am
The line "Hydrochloric acid brings the vaccine down to your body's normal pH level of about 7.4." in the transcript is incorrect. The audio refers to the pH of the blood, not the body.
Stuart, Adelaide, Australia
January 31, 2013 6:41pm
My family sadly believes a lot of the anti-vaccine hype and misinformation (scaremongering)that is going around.Unfortunately they willl accept no amount of fact or scientific information. Everytime I try to interject the scientific facts I get shot down and told that I am falling for the lies from the pharmaceutical industry.
Joffbaum, NYC
February 01, 2013 10:30am
I see where you're coming from, Jimmy. When things are misconstrued tho, I think it's often bc people read what they want into comments. They want to argue their position, but to do so, need to find someone who (they think, at least) opposes their position.
I stand behind what I said about the news. A timely eg - a Medscape article today, lamenting doctors who fail to prescribe Tamiflu (an anti-viral effective against flu) with sometimes fatal consequences.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/777890
During the H1N1 scare, I noted not a single ad advising folks with risk factors (eg. asthma, COPD, etc) that if they did get the flu, there was a drug available (Tamiflu) that could save their lives. It must be started within 48 hrs of contracting the flu - yet public health encouraged sick folks to "stay home."
I believe they chose to promote only the flu shot, believing some would forgo it if they knew "something else" was available. It's not "conspiracy theory" to admit there are financial interests at stake with the development of vaccines; new drugs cost money to develop and that money is re-couped via "sales" - not by giveaways.
As I said, I am a proponent of vaccines generally - but that doesn't mean I have to "tow the party line" in every case. I'll use my own discretion - and if folks want to misconstrue this bc they're only capable of binary thinking, then that's a condition - simple-mindedness - for which sadly, there is no prevention, or cure.
Jennifer, Kingston, Ontario
February 02, 2013 11:55am
I know it's wrong and illogical but I refuse to get a flu vaccine. I have only gotten the flu twice in my life. Both times I got the flu I had received a flu shot about 2-3 weeks before I became sick.
Maybe the flu shot didn't give me the flu and I'm being silly but whatever. In my mind flu shot = me getting the flu so I assume my stupid belief that flu shots cause the flu has spared me from the flu for over 10 years while my friends and family have contracted it.
In my head I know it's an illogical belief but that illogical belief must be acting as some sort of placebo effect.
Norb, Atlanta
February 14, 2013 12:09pm
Thanks for the information, but aspartame is an ingredient in Mutacol and Vivotif L vaccines.
I'm interested to hear the authors response regarding asparatame in vaccines.
Under the ingredients of approved vaccines in Canada the ingredient "lactose aspartame" is listed. I was curious what "lactose aspartame" is and found it is simply lactose and aspartame mixed together and not a separate single ingredient. The fact it is listed as a single ingredient, typed together on the same line is curiously deceptive.
You can see the Government of Canada document in the link below. You'll notice under the "other materials" column "lactose aspartame" is listed twice and interestingly all other ingredients are listed on separate lines but "lactose aspartame" is listed together on the same line as a single ingredient even though it is a mixture.
Yes aspartame is an ingredient in some vaccines approved in Canada.
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cig-gci/p01-tab01-eng.php
Lynn, Winnipeg
March 07, 2013 2:52pm
Possibly lactose aspartame is a proprietary mixture? You can check by looking around.
Possibly lactose aspartame is a product that is manufactured and presents as a liquid of a resultant products in a hydrlised mixture of the initial product and..possibly dried.
Its immaterial when no argment is made to the final;
"Yes aspartame is an ingredient in some vaccines approved in Canada.".
This is a curious statement.
I think this needs investigating in terms of intent.
Mud, Sin City, Oz
March 21, 2013 4:21am
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@Jennifer: I agree that we need to be cautious about new vaccines and rushing to give them to people, especially children. That is part of being a good doctor, and I applaud you for it. We always need to balance the known risks against the possible consequences of vaccinating versus not.
But you're going to have a hard time convincing me that people who choose not to vaccinate their children against diseases that we had basically wiped from our society is something we should consider. The number of cases of diseases we haven't seen in any great numbers for decades is on the rise because of people who have decided not to vaccinate their children.
Kids die from these diseases. We tend to forget this because we haven't been through epidemics of them in our lifetimes. But they happen. Kids even become horribly sick and some even die from complications from chicken pox. Being a responsible parent and doctor means honestly weighing the risks and benefits.
But I suspect that you know this, and are just being a good doctor, and noting that rushing into things is not a good idea on either side. Informed consent is still a wonderful gift.
Sara, Salt Lake City
January 21, 2013 5:06pm