Episode #137 - Vaccines: science vs. scare

VGS We're standing here in front of the statue commemorating the smallpox eradication campaign. Smallpox being the only disease that the world, humanity, has eradicated. This WHO-led campaign was the first mass vaccination campaign that brought together countries, experts and communities. Today, we have 30 vaccines that can prevent many many diseases. And 154 million lives have been saved, in the last 50 years, by just 14 of those vaccines. So if you're a new parent, you may have questions about vaccines. We have Doctor Kate O'Brien here with us to answer your questions. Kate, let's start with - parents may have heard what if we let our child get sick and develop immunity rather than vaccinate them? What is your advice regarding that?

KOB The first thing I want to say is that the vaccines that have been developed that are in our program, are vaccines against serious diseases. Sometimes we hear the term natural immunity. And I really want to address this question. Some people think that getting infected is somehow more natural than it is to develop your immunity from a vaccination. And I really want to disavow this. It's the immune system in either circumstance is responding to either a germ or the vaccine itself. What's most important is that exposing children to infections and risking the consequences of serious disease, and in the worst circumstances, death, is not what any parent would want to do.

VGS Another question that young parents may have is if you give a child many vaccines at the same time, you might overwhelm their immune system. What would you say to that?

KOB Children are exposed to, in fact, millions of different microbes in the natural environment around us, in their foods, in the environment, by touching things, in their own bodies. We all have, in fact, more microbes in our body than we do human cells. This is an important way that children's immune systems develop. The issue is, how to allow children to develop immunity against those germs that are consequential, that are serious, that cause disease. So the point around the vaccines is, children's immune systems are more than able to respond to multiple vaccines, given at the same time, and multiple doses that are given over the course of their lifetime. Although we perceive that they're being given “a lot of vaccines” in fact, on a daily basis, children are being exposed and sampling that outside world of those microbes all the time. The immune system is an incredibly powerful system. It's amazing the way that it matures and identifies And vaccines are the safest way to actually derive protection for children, adolescents and adults against the consequential germs.

VGS Can parents maybe stagger the schedule? Give a little space? Would that still have the same impact that you are seeking in protecting the child?

KOB So this seems like a common sense, logical thing to do. We have studies that tell us in what sequence the vaccines should be given, how many doses should be given and how far apart they should be. Now, when you mess around with that schedule, there are consequences of doing that. First, it means that children may miss the doses that they should get. Second, it means that they may not get the vaccines at the time when they most need them. We time the schedule so that the protection is developed before the period of time when children are most at risk of the particular disease that the vaccine is protecting against. And third, there are some vaccines that need to be timed relative to other vaccines that are in the schedule. They don't work as well if they're timed incorrectly. So that's the reason why we have pediatricians, scientists, epidemiologists who make the recommendations within each country for what the schedule should be.

VGS So WHO makes a recommendation, right? But who is deciding on what vaccinations a citizen receives?

KOB Countries are the ones who decide on their schedule. What WHO does is, because we're a global recommending body, we pull together experts from around the world. We ask them to look at all of the evidence that is available and we provide recommendations to countries. They can rely on the aggregated evidence that we've put together, so they can also deliberate on what makes most sense for their particular circumstance.

VGS Thank you Kate. I have additional questions. I'm sure our viewers have additional questions. So we will take this in part two where we will answer some of your questions on vaccines. Until next time then, stay safe, stay healthy and stick with science.