Authorities take special care to make sure the vaccines are effective and at the same time, the contents or the ingredients do not cause harm in any way to the recipients.
Every ingredient is analyzed and rechecked for its possibility to cause harm.
Innumerable studies are conducted. And only then, a vaccine is considered safe for public use.
There are responsible people sitting up there.
You see a lot of material on the web telling you that the influenza or the flu vaccine is unsafe, harmful and with serious side effects and dangers.
Donald Trump said during the Republican presidential debate,
“Just the other day, two years old, two and a half years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”
This story has been proved false and there is no link to prove it right. The anti-vaccine sentiment continues despite overwhelming evidence of the flu vaccine benefits.
You should know that the flu virus evolves rapidly and a new strain appears every flu season. Therefore, it becomes necessary to manufacture a new flu vaccine every year to match and control the new virus strain.
Additives like mercury and formaldehyde, however, do not change much.
Flu vaccine ingredient Thimerosal (mercury): Is it really bad?
There is a lot of doubt raised by certain medical personnel that the flu vaccine ingredient Thimerosal is dangerous and can cause autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children.
Recent research by the University of Brazil confirms the toxic effect of mercury on the brain and is linked to severe brain damage leading to autism in children and Alzheimer’s disease in adults.
But, being present in minute amounts in vaccines, Thimerosal remains safe.
CDC stresses the same point and links to a study, which concludes that
“increasing exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines during the first 2 years of life was not related to the risk of developing an ASD. (J Pediatr 2013;163:561-7).”
Formaldehyde in flu vaccine: Is it really bad?
During the manufacture of the flu vaccine, formaldehyde is diluted and very small concentration of it remains.
It acts as a deactivating agent. It kills the viruses and neutralizes the toxins released by the bacteria during the process of manufacture.
We don’t want a vaccine that is infected, repercussions would be terrible.
Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen. At the same time, it is produced in the body because we require it to make amino acids.
It cannot be harmful to us through flu vaccination because its concentration levels in the vaccine are much lower than its levels in our body.
As skeptical raptor states, the concentration of formaldehyde in the body is about 1,000,000X more than found in a dose of vaccine.
Whatever said and done, the benefits of taking the flu shot vaccine far outweigh the sometimes minor side effects the vaccine may cause.
