About Vaccines and Vaccination

What are vaccines?

Vaccines are benign strains of deadly diseases that are introduced in to the patient's body so that the body develops a defense against the disease. Vaccines are used to prevent potentially deadly diseases like smallpox from spreading.

How does vaccination work?

A vaccine works by exposing patients to a disease in a way that allows the body to build up a defense to the disease before becoming infected. Essentially, the cell walls of the virulent cell are injected into the patient. The patient's immune system becomes alerted and builds anti-bodies that destroy the virus.

Childhood vaccinations are often given because the immune systems of young children are still developing. The child's immune system is ready but underexposed - it can only successfully fight viruses it has been exposed to. For example, smallpox vaccination provides the needed exposure by injecting the child with a benign strain of the disease. The government's health agencies recommend that childhood vaccinations be given as early in life as possible. The idea is to expose children to a 'harmless' version of the virus before the potentially deadly strain reaches them.

Brief history of vaccines and vaccination

The doctor credited with bringing vaccination to western civilization is Dr. Edward Jenner, who practiced medicine in rural England in the late 1700s. Dr. Jenner noticed an interesting correlation: people who worked with either horses that were infected with grease disease (a horse disease similar to smallpox) or cows that had cowpox did not become infected with smallpox.

Jenner sought to prove that a person infected with cowpox (a non-lethal disease) could resist smallpox. He injected a young boy with cowpox and waited for the boy to recover from this inoculation. After the boy recovered, Jenner intentionally injected the boy with a fatal dose of smallpox. Luckily, Jenner was correct, the smallpox vaccination worked and the boy never developed the disease. Jenner then concluded that the boy had built an immunization against smallpox because of the boy's exposure to cowpox.

Vaccines Containing Thimerosal (From the FDA)

 

Thimerosal in Some Currently Manufactured U.S. Licensed Vaccines
Anthrax	Anthrax vaccine	BioPort Corporation
DTaP	Tripedia2	Aventis Pasteur
	Infanrix	GlaxoSmithKline
DT	All Products
Td	All Products
TT	All Products
Hib	ActHIB/ OmniHIB3	Aventis Pasteur
	HibTITER (Single dose)	Wyeth-Lederle
	PedvaxHIB liquid	Merck
Hib/HepB	COMVAX4	Merck
Hepatitis B5	Engerix-B	GlaxoSmithKline
	Recombivax HB	Merck
Hepatitis A	Havrix	GlaxoSmithKline
	Vaqta	Merck
IPV	IPOL	Aventis Pasteur
	Poliovax	Aventis Pasteur
Influenza6	All	Aventis Pasteur, Evans, Wyeth-Lederle
Japanese Encephalitis7	JE-VAX	BIKEN
Lyme	LYMErix	GlaxoSmithKline
MMR	MMR-II	Merck
Meningococcal	Menomune A, C, AC and A/C/Y/W-135	Aventis Pasteur
Pneumococcal>	Prevnar (Pneumo Conjugate)	Lederle Laboratories
	Pneumovax 23	Merck
	Pnu-Imune 23	Wyeth-Lederle
Rabies	IMOVAX	Aventis Pasteur
	Rabavert	Chiron
Typhoid Fever	Typhim Vi	Aventis Pasteur
	Typhoid Ty21a	Swiss Serum and Vaccine Institute
Varicella	Varivax	Merck
Yellow Fever	Y-F-Vax	Aventis Pasteur
Table Footnotes Thimerosal is 50% mercury (Hg) by weight. A 0.01% solution (1 part per 10,000) of thimerosal contains 50 µg of Hg per 1 ml dose or 25 µg of Hg per 0.5 ml dose. Aventis Pasteur’s Tripedia may be used to reconstitute ActHib to form TriHIBit. TriHIBit is indicated for use in children 15 to 18 months of age. OmniHIB is manufactured by Aventis Pasteur but distributed by GlaxoSmithKline. COMVAX is not licensed for use under 6 weeks of age because of decreased response to the Hib component. Merck’s Hepatitis B vaccine for adults still contains thimerosal as a preservative. Children under 3 years of age receive a half-dose of vaccine, i.e., 0.25 mL (12.5 µg mercury/dose.) JE-VAX is manufactured by BIKEN and distributed by Aventis Pasteur. Children 1 to 3 years of age receive a half-dose of vaccine, i.e., 0.5 mL (17.5 µg mercury/dose).

 

 

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