Looking for information on vaccines

[Ineedtoknow]

Hey all,

 

My background is in Chemistry, but I did just recently sign up for courses to earn a masters in biotechnology. I have done some research into vaccine's and I understand the general concept.

 

I'm looking for any third party research information on vaccinations (how they behave on a molecular level) and any info on proving that they are close to 100% effective and do not cause long term (chronic) health problems.

 

I would also love to hear your opinions and understanding of vaccines.

 

Thanks

 

Sincerely, I need to know.

[CharonY]

The efficacy of vaccines varies, depending on the disease. I am not sure what you means with third party but organizations like WHO, FDA and CDC provide information about effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

Negative side effects are vanishingly small (typically found in the order of a few incidences per million vaccination) which makes it very hard to figure out whether these were the result of vaccination or caused by something else entirely. One known risk is the use of certain live vaccinations in immunodeficient people (such as polio vaccine which was phased out in the late 90s).

Other than that long-term effects are almost impossible to figure out, as you are exposing your body continuously to potentially harmful things in the air (especially in homes), food, water etc.

A singular exposure due to vaccination is likely to vanish in the noise of overall exposure.

[Ineedtoknow]

Hi Charon,

 

Thanks for the reply, in response to what I mean about a third party, is research conducted by a party that has no ties to governmental organizations that may possibly have financial backing by companies that would make a profit from governmental policies, ect.

[CharonY]

The mandate of the FDA or CDC is independent of companies and before vaccines are approved the companies need to submit rigorous documentation of safety and efficacy. There are various databases to mine, such as

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Activities/VSD.html

 

The data tracked by these agencies tend to be the most thorough, as they obtain and track data from large populations, whereas specific studies tend to be more limited. For example, they may specifically track the safety for high-risk groups, such as children with kidney issues, pregnant women and other groups that would get lost in the overall data tracked by agencies.

 

I would advise you to make a quick google scholar or pubmed search or vaccine safety, as they are far too many to list. If you are interested in non-experimental vaccines that are generally regarded as safe you will probably have to go back in time a bit.

You may be interested in the development of the pertussis vaccine that started off as whole-cell vaccines, but then got refined to only gone an antigenic protein (Lambert, J Infect Dis. 2014).

 

In a way we only have a discussion about vaccine safety because they are so effective. Before they effectively reduced or almost eliminated the disease, it was a no-brainer to vaccinate as serious health issues and death due to the respective diseases were so devastating. Now that the disease levels are so low, people start for looking for the very rare events of vaccine-related issues. Sadly, this could result in re-emergence of the disease which starts the whole cycle again. Until of course, pathogens emerge that somehow changed so much that existing vaccines stop working...

[Ineedtoknow]

Good info... I'll take a look at the CDC link you provided and the development of the pertussis vaccine.