Vaccines are safe and effective ways of protecting lives; annually saving millions. By working alongside the body’s own immune defenses to offer long-term protection from infectious disease outbreaks.
Vaccines contain inactivated or killed forms of viruses or bacteria that no longer pose any threat. In addition, vaccines often include other ingredients like formaldehyde, mercury or aluminium which may be present in very small amounts to aid their effectiveness.
1. Vaccines are safe
Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements ever. By helping prevent disease, hospitalizations, and deaths due to vaccination, measles and rotavirus have now become rare in the US due to vaccines; smallpox vaccination has almost completely eradicated wild poliovirus globally; as well as making vaccination an essential preventative tool.
Vaccines contain dead or weakened versions of infectious germs known as antigens that stimulate your immune system to produce antibodies against them, helping protect both you and your community through “herd immunity”. They undergo rigorous safety testing before being approved for use; most children and adults tolerate them well with only minor side effects such as pain or redness at injection sites.
2. Vaccines are effective
Vaccines contain weakened, killed or synthetically manufactured versions of disease-causing germs (or pathogens) or parts thereof to provide immunity against certain illnesses. They often also include adjuvants to aid their effectiveness as well as preservatives that ensure safe production, storage and use.
By taking a vaccine, your immune system “learns” to recognize and combat germs more quickly and effectively than natural immunity can. A vaccine allows us to have faster immunity responses that can work against diseases than naturally.
Vaccines undergo rigorous controlled clinical trials to ensure their safety and efficacy. Their success can be judged by measuring efficacy – how many of those given the vaccine did not become sick when compared with those who received no vaccination (control group).
3. Vaccines don’t cause disease
Many vaccines contain chemicals such as formaldehyde, mercury and aluminum which are toxic to the body at certain levels; however, their levels found in vaccines are much less than what your body naturally produces; hence they won’t lead to disease or any other issues.
Vaccines work by simulating an infection and prompting your immune system to recognize disease-causing germs and learn to fight them off proactively, giving it a fighting chance against spreading diseases in the first place. This gives your immune system a fighting chance against infections before they spread!
Vaccines give everyone in a community an opportunity to build herd immunity against infectious diseases, protecting infants, the elderly and immunocompromised adults whose immune systems may not be strong enough to deal with serious infections alone.
4. Vaccines don’t cause side effects
August is National Immunization Awareness Month and provides the perfect opportunity to educate yourself on vaccinations and dispel any false or misleading claims about them. All vaccines go through extensive testing phases conducted by scientists prior to being distributed; their ingredients contain trace amounts of formaldehyde, mercury and aluminum which have only minimal side effects; FDA and CDC monitor vaccinations closely in case there are any potential negative outcomes.
Vaccines work in harmony with your natural immunity to provide protection from diseases that used to threaten and even kill infants, children and adults, such as measles, whooping cough and diphtheria. Thanks to herd immunity – whereby most populations are immunized against infection thus protecting unimmunized individuals against further risk – vaccines have greatly decreased incidence rates worldwide of infectious diseases like these.
5. Vaccines don’t cause autism
Vaccines do not cause autism or any other disorders, contrary to claims made by certain activists and celebrities. Autism is an intricate condition which involves genetics, brain anatomy differences, environmental toxicants and toxic exposure.
Andrew Wakefield, a British surgeon, first initiated speculation regarding vaccines and autism in 1998 when he published a paper in The Lancet purporting that MMR vaccination could cause intestinal complaints in children as well as autism, later disproving his findings and retracting the paper. His study has since been discredited.
Scientific community experts have repeatedly confirmed that vaccines do not cause autism or any other diseases, according to numerous studies conducted over time. Furthermore, no association was found between vaccines and multiple sclerosis, diabetes or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Instead, vaccines help create “herd immunity” by making most people resistant against disease outbreaks; this helps protect infants, pregnant women and immunocompromised adults who cannot receive vaccines themselves from harm.
