Are we overloading our children’s immune system?
I apologise right from the start: this month’s diary is going to be a bit techy!
It is a concern for many of us parents. 100 years ago children had just one vaccination (smallpox), in the 1960s there were 13 and now over 20. To seemingly make matters worse all the jabs seem to be crammed into an ever-shorter period. Surely this must overload or damage the immune system?
The answer is simply no. Immunologists from the USA have calculated it would take over 10,000 vaccinations all on the same day to get close to overloading a baby’s immune system.
Some of us are concerned that it is the nature of giving all the vaccines together that seems unnatural: spreading them out would somehow feel better. Yet it is very natural for the body to be bombarded continuously. Within a few hours of being born a baby’s bowel is filling up with about five different types of bacteria, in there millions. We are all in daily contact with any number of bacteria and viruses all looking for chinks in the armour. Toys, lavatories, food, water, clothing, doors, other children, sneezing, and coughs: a child may experience more of an attack on the way to an MMR vaccine than it experiences with the jab itself!
Also vaccines vary in the amount of work they give the body. The old smallpox vaccine contained over 200 different particles or antigens for the body’s immune system to react against, the old whooping cough vaccine contains over 3000 and MMR contains 24. Children today actually are given fewer antigens than we were when I had my jabs as a child.The question of whether to vaccinate or not has been difficult. In such a complex area many authors have simplified the issues too much. If you want more information try my website, blackbook: the link is opposite.
I apologise right from the start: this month’s diary is going to be a bit techy!
It is a concern for many of us parents. 100 years ago children had just one vaccination (smallpox), in the 1960s there were 13 and now over 20. To seemingly make matters worse all the jabs seem to be crammed into an ever-shorter period. Surely this must overload or damage the immune system?
The answer is simply no. Immunologists from the USA have calculated it would take over 10,000 vaccinations all on the same day to get close to overloading a baby’s immune system.
Some of us are concerned that it is the nature of giving all the vaccines together that seems unnatural: spreading them out would somehow feel better. Yet it is very natural for the body to be bombarded continuously. Within a few hours of being born a baby’s bowel is filling up with about five different types of bacteria, in there millions. We are all in daily contact with any number of bacteria and viruses all looking for chinks in the armour. Toys, lavatories, food, water, clothing, doors, other children, sneezing, and coughs: a child may experience more of an attack on the way to an MMR vaccine than it experiences with the jab itself!
Also vaccines vary in the amount of work they give the body. The old smallpox vaccine contained over 200 different particles or antigens for the body’s immune system to react against, the old whooping cough vaccine contains over 3000 and MMR contains 24. Children today actually are given fewer antigens than we were when I had my jabs as a child.The question of whether to vaccinate or not has been difficult. In such a complex area many authors have simplified the issues too much. If you want more information try my website, blackbook: the link is opposite.
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