Authored by: Nocterro.

There has been much recent controversy over vaccines with the outbreak of H1N1, or “swine flu” earlier this year. Some people have been making some quite outrageous claims, such as the H1N1 vaccine containing all kinds of dangerous chemicals that will harm or even kill you. Are these claims accurate? No, rather they are the bogus claim of conspiracy theorists that can be refuted with even 15 minutes of simple research on wikipedia. However, being scientifically-minded as I am, I will go much more in-depth.

Thimerosal

The first claim I will address is that vaccines contain poisonous mercury in the form of thimerosal, that can cause severe brain damage, particularly in infants. First, it must be noted that we are not really talking about pure mercury. Rather, there are two types of mercury – ethylmercury(referred to from now on as EM), and methylmercury(referred to as MM). EMs are “organic mercury compounds in which the mercury is attached to an ethyl group”, and MMs are the same, but attached to a methyl group.  EMs and MMs have the chemical formulas C2H5Hg+ and CH3Hg+, respectively.[¹] To show why this is important, look at the formulas for water, H20, and hydrogen peroxide, H2o2. Both have the same elements, but in different amounts. So, we can see that ethylmercury and methylmercury will have different effects on the body, just as water and hydrogen peroxide do.

Why is this important? It shows that one just cannot say “mercury in vaccines is bad”. Any harmful effects that MMs have cannot be applied to EMs. Of course it is still possible at this point for EMs to be harmful. But is it? No. Let’s look at some numbers.

The half life of EM in the human body is less than a week, compare this to the half-life of MM, 1.5 months.[2] This means that within a week, half the mercury will no longer be in your body.

The lethal dose of thimerosal for 50% of the population (this study was done in rats) is 98 mg per kilogram.[3](thanks to RoaringAtheist for finding this!)

Each 0.5 mL dose of the H1N1 vaccine contains 24.5mcg of ethylmercury. That’s 0.0245 mg.[4]

What does this mean? It means that a lethal dose for 50% of the adult population is ~4,000 H1N1 vaccinations per kg. I weigh ~90 kg. So, for me to die from mercury poisoning, I would have to get 360,000 doses of the vaccine in less than a week.

Of course, none of this matters at all, because there is also a thimerosal-free version of the vaccine.

The vaccine makes you sick/Live virus

Here is another ridiculous claim I have often seen about the vaccine – it will in fact give you the very illness it is supposed to protect against! Of course this is absurd.

There are two types of the flu vaccine: Inactivated vaccine, and Live attenuated vaccine. The inactivated vaccine is also known as the “killed” vaccine, with good reason. The viruses in the vaccine are dead![5] The live attenuated vaccine, on the other hand, contains a version of the virus that is alive, although weakened to the point that it is not pathogenic. Such viruses will cause an immune response while not causing illness.[6]

It’s My Choice

So, it is now apparent that the vaccine is not dangerous, and that there is no harm in getting one. But even so, why should you bother? The obvious answer is that so you don’t get the flu. But there is a second reason – herd immunity. This is the resistance of a group to attack by disease to which a large proportion of the members are immune.[7] To put it simply, the higher the percentage of people in a community who have gotten the vaccine, the less vulnerable the community is to suffering a pandemic. Every individual who gets the vaccine slightly lowers the chances of a pandemic. By getting the vaccine, you slightly lower the odds of other people getting sick or even dying.

These are the main reasons for not getting the vaccine that I have seen. If you have any further objections, please explain and I will attempt to answer.

[1] http://www.reference.md/files/D005/mD005035.html

[2] http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/statement_jul2006/en/index.html

[3] http://infao5501.ag5.mpi-sb.mpg.de:8080/topx/archive?link=Wikipedia-Lip6-2/221998.xml&style#1.4.

[4] www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/…/UCM182401.pdf

[5] www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-flu.pdf

[6] http://virology-online.com/general/typesofvaccines.htm

[7] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/herd+immunity