Are Vaccines Safe?
To vaccinate or not vaccinate…that is the question.
Edward Jenner pioneered the concept of vaccines including creating the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine.
Vaccines save lives.
It is no secret that vaccinations have revolutionized global health. Arguably the single most life-saving innovation in the history of medicine, vaccines have eradicated smallpox, slashed child mortality rates, and prevented lifelong disabilities. Hundreds of millions of people have died prematurely before vaccinations were developed and began to be routinely administered. Fear of paralysis or death from polio and smallpox was a reality for people everywhere until a few decades ago. Studies have shown a greater than 92% decline in cases and a 99% or greater decline in deaths due to diseases prevented by vaccines recommended before 1980 were shown for diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, and tetanus. Endemic transmission of poliovirus and measles and rubella viruses has been eliminated in the United States; smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Declines were 80% or greater for cases and deaths of most vaccine-preventable diseases targeted since 1980 including hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, Hib, and varicella. https://jamanetwork.com/journals
At the heart of every vaccine is a component called an antigen -- typically a chunk of a protein that's identical to one borne by the targeted pathogen -- that can excite the immune system to recognize it, then rally and retaliate against it.
When a vaccine dose is shot into your arm, it draws the attention of front-line immune sentinels called dendritic cells, Stanford Medicine vaccine expert Bali Pulendran, PhD, told me. Widely distributed throughout the body's tissues (notably under the skin and in or near muscle tissue), dendritic cells sit around waiting for trouble.
As soon as these dendritic cells sense an antigen, suggesting an invading pathogen is present, they slurp it up, chew it into little pieces, display these tidbits on their surfaces like battle trophies and head for the lymph nodes, the barracks of the immune system.
There, they alert an assemblage of diverse immune-cell types, which launch a coordinated attack on anything possessing features identical to those antigenic battle trophies.
The ingredients in these vaccines are very different than our newest vaccine for COVID 19.
They are the first vaccines ever approved for clinical use that employ an information-coding molecule called RNA to generate an immune response to a microbial pathogen. This is revolutionary because what the immune system responds to is not the RNA, but something the RNA teaches our cells to make. These new vaccines are the first to use the RNA coding molecule to prompt our bodies to fight the virus. https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/.
Regardless of your beliefs regarding any safety about vaccines, the bottom line is, the risk associated with vaccinations compared to the benefit that they provide are unparalleled.
Vaccines save lives.
The man revered as the father of American psychology, William James, said, “True beliefs are those that prove useful to the believer.”
Ultimately it is YOUR decision whether or not to get a vaccine. Please educate yourself before turning down any preventative treatment or test. They could end up saving your life or even the lives of the ones you love the most!
Sources listed above