Vaccination is a frequent topic of discussion. Unfortunately, myths and half-truths about side effects and vaccine testing are mixed into the talks.
MYTH 1 – WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE LONG-TERM PERFORMANCE OF VACCINES
Some people view vaccinations with distrust because they consider this medical field still too young. Meanwhile, Edward Anthony Jenner first applied the smallpox vaccine more than 200 years ago, specifically in 1796.
Intensive research on vaccines has been going on for more than 100 years, so even some claims that the overall mechanism of vaccines has been researched for the last 15 years are not based on the truth.
Medicine is one of the scientific fields that will never stop, and there will always be something to discover. In every scientific field, it is, therefore, always necessary to start from its most modern findings. And according to the latest scientific findings, vaccination is one of the most important discoveries in the field of prevention, and it is safer to vaccinate the right individual with the right vaccine than not to vaccinate him.
MYTH 2 – ALLERGIES DEVELOP AFTER VACCINATION
Very often, discussions about vaccination turn to the side effects of immunisation and whether vaccination can cause allergies or diseases of the immune system.
People involved in alternative medicine claim that cases of vaccine damage are on the rise. However, this claim is not based on any scientific evidence; on the contrary, current scientific knowledge does not point to a causal connection between the development of allergic diseases, i.e. atopic dermatitis or asthma, with vaccination.
It is precisely patients with certain allergic diseases who have a higher risk of complications from certain infections and should be appropriately vaccinated.
There is also no evidence that current vaccinations cause any autoimmune disease. With one exception: Measles vaccination very rarely can cause a temporary decrease in platelets in the blood, which increases bleeding, for example, in case of injury. However, thrombocytopenia, as this disease is called, is never life-threatening.
Thrombocytopenia can occur in approximately one case in 24,000 vaccinees, whereas thrombocytopenia occurs much more frequently with measles virus infection, and death occurs in about one in 1,000 patients. A simple calculation shows that vaccination against measles will save 24 human lives at the cost of causing one non-serious autoimmune thrombocytopenia without life-threatening and with a prognosis of complete recovery.
MYTH 3 – TESTING FOR VACCINES IS LESS RIGOROUS THAN FOR OTHER DRUGS
Half-truths about vaccine testing also include information that vaccines do not undergo standard testing for safety. This statement gives the impression that vaccines are tested and controlled less thoroughly than other medicines.
The opposite is true. However, the testing of vaccines is much more extensive than other drugs. All vaccines available in developed countries, including the Czech Republic, meet the highest safety standards.
The sufficient safety of the vaccine is necessary for its registration and marketing, and even then, its security is carefully monitored in so-called post-licensing studies.
The vaccine development, testing and subsequent approval take up to decades. Manufacturers conduct clinical trials, but independent regulatory authorities must evaluate their results. In Europe, this is the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The studies are carried out according to a precisely defined extensive protocol, approved not only by the EMA but also by the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) and the ethics committee. Rigorous control and legal standards ensure the highest possible scientific and ethical standards of clinical trials.
If any serious safety issues are identified at any stage of vaccine development, further development is halted. Vaccines are expected to have a higher safety standard than other medicines because they are mainly administered to healthy children and adults.
The tolerance of adverse reactions for drugs administered preventively is much lower than for medications dispensed to already sick patients to cure them, such as the administration of antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections, the application of insulin for the treatment of diabetes or cytostatics for the treatment of malignant tumours. This lower tolerance to vaccination dictates a much more vital need to detect and monitor rarer side effects that would be tolerable for other drugs.
MYTH 4 – A PLACEBO IS USED DURING TESTING
In the first phase of a clinical trial of a given vaccine, healthy adult volunteers are included in the test group, even in cases where children’s vaccines are tested. When investigating new substances, a placebo (ineffective substance) or a control vaccine that is already registered and whose effects are known is usually administered to the control part of the test group.
When testing a new vaccine against an already established and registered vaccine, some lay people believe that these tests are less significant because, in this case, there is no unvaccinated control group. However, this practice has a simple explanation.
An unpleasant intramuscular injection administers most vaccines. It is considered unethical to inject young children with a placebo that has no health benefit in the later stages of vaccine testing. For this reason, in some studies, a control vaccine is used instead of a placebo, the effectiveness and safety of which have been proven in the past and which is registered.
MYTH 5 – IT IS BEST TO GO THROUGH WITH THE INFECTION
Vaccination represents a lower antigen load for the human body than infectious disease. For example, the whooping cough vaccine contains 3-5 antigens (antigens are particles of bacteria and viruses that trigger an immune response). A natural infection exposes the organism to approximately 3,000 antigens.
Moreover, the risk of permanent severe consequences can never be excluded entirely during infectious disease. For example, before the introduction of mandatory vaccination, measles was one of the most common causes of death for children under five years of age.
In the past, doctors also encountered death and numerous permanent consequences after contracting polio, another of the diseases against which vaccination is now mandatory. It attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis, sometimes with painfully deformed limbs.
Other infectious diseases that can leave lasting severe effects include chicken pox’s seemingly banal childhood disease. Therefore, many paediatricians consider the ever-popular “fever parties” unacceptable among parents, the aim of which is the deliberate and targeted infection of children from sick friends and neighbours.
The vaccination calendar always reflects the current epidemiological situation. In addition, vaccination helps reduce the circulation of viruses and bacteria in the population and thus provides indirect protection to people around the vaccinated individual, including those who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons.
