Vaccines: 6 misconceptions decrypted

"Vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants", "it is best to get naturally immunized", "vaccination is the result of lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry", … These ideas circulate widely on the Internet and are even the subject of serious scientific publications. So what should we really think about it? ABSMARTHEALTH takes stock.

The vaccination saves three million lives every year, says UNICEF. However, the vaccines are the subject of much controversy and even distrust: a 2018 Ipsos survey showed that almost one in five French people were against vaccination. Accused of promotingautism, contain toxic products or even harm theimmunity, vaccines are even questioned by some doctors or scientific studies. Nothing very new: " Already in 1802, pamphlets and satyr figures were circulating in England showing vaccines against smallpox turn into cow and pork ", quips Jean-Nicolas Tournier, head of the infectious diseases department at the Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute (Irba). To unravel the true from the false, here are six deciphered anti-vaccine myths.

Adjuvants used in vaccines are dangerous: false

The adjuvants are used in some vaccines to increase the immune response and reduce the number of doses needed. Thimerosal, a derivative of mercury known to be neurotoxic, has thus been accused of promoting autism in young children. However, the doses used (between 0.003% and 0.01%, i.e. a maximum of 25-50 ug / dose) are notoriously insufficient for any risk of toxicity, explains the ANSM (National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products). Other adjuvant called into question: aluminum hydroxide, accused of causing muscle damage (myofasciitis macrophages). Problem: epidemiological studies on the subject seem to suffer from many statistical biases and the disease seems surprisingly a French specificity, while these saltsaluminum are used worldwide. In addition, aluminum injected intramuscularly is essentially eliminated quickly, notes the High Public Health Council in a 2013 report.

Vaccines Promote Autism: False

Several scientific studies explain that MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccination can promote the development of autistic disorders in children. A controversy launched in 1998 by The Lancet with a study on the subject, since withdrawn for falsification. The movements antivaccines are also based on the increase in the rate of children diagnosed with autism (the prevalence went from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 68 between 1975 and 2010), which they parallel with the generalization of vaccination. In reality, there is no real increase in cases, but criteria for diagnostic wider, explains in particular Franck Camus, research director at CNRS. In the end, several epidemiological studies on these hundreds of thousands of cases have found no correlation between vaccination and autism.

Vaccines have side effects: true

Like any medicine, vaccines can cause side effects like local redness or fever (approximately 2% to 15% of cases according to the WHO), but they are generally mild and short duration. Very rare cases ofallergy are however possible: MMR vaccine (measles-mumps-rubella) can cause anaphylactic shock (3.5 to 10 cases in a million doses injected) or convulsions feverish. In the end, the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks, the site recalls. Vaccination Info Service. However, there are contraindications, for example in people following a immunosuppressive therapy or in case of known allergy to one of the adjuvants. Live vaccines attenuated are also not recommended for pregnant women.

Vaccines are 100% effective: false

Every year many people complain that they have caught the influenza even after being vaccinated. Normal: since there are different strains, the composition of the vaccine is decided six to nine months in advance depending on the strains circulating in the world and forecasts. In 2019, the vaccine showed for example an efficiency rate relatively low in France, around 59% against virus A (H1N1) and 19% against the A (H3N2) virus, the two most common strains that year. But even imperfect, the vaccine remains the best way to protect oneself: it is estimated that 2,000 deaths per year are avoided in the elderly thanks to vaccination. The other vaccines offer almost complete protection (97% for the measles after two doses for example). Please note: it takes an incubation period of two weeks on average before the immune system does not develop protection. It is therefore possible to contract the disease in this interval.

Vaccination is pushed by the pharmaceutical industry lobby: true and false

" How can we not be surprised that a minister who has been partially paid, for years, by pharmaceutical laboratories, decides without major argument the transition to eleven compulsory vaccines ? "Wondered the site Reporterre in January 2018, taking up one of the preferred arguments of antivaccines: that of a government in the pay of the pharmaceutical lobby which would seek at all costs to sell its products. Suspicions largely fueled by the fiasco of 2009, where 94 million vaccines had been ordered by the Minister of Health to deal with the pandemic announced of H1N1 flu, only six million having actually been used.

Certainly, the vaccine business is constantly growing in the world: it has gone from 23 to 42.3 billion euros between 2012 and 2016, according to Leem (drug companies). This is still a very small part of the 1,000 billion that the pharmaceutical industry generates in total (2017). In addition, these vaccines are widely sold in low-income countries at very low prices, therefore unprofitable for laboratories compared to other drugs. Even for relatively high-cost vaccines, vaccination remains profitable for the government. " For each euro invested in vaccination, the return on investment is 48 euros "Recalls Gavi, the international organization which provides vaccines at reduced prices to developing countries.

Vaccines prevent the body from protecting itself naturally: false

Some people think it's better to catch the flu or mumps rather than going through the vaccine, so that the immune system develops long-term defenses. In reality, the vaccine works the same way than the infection itself: it stimulates the production ofantibody specific against the virus or the bacterium, which protects us if our body subsequently encounters this microbe. As the vaccine is specific to each disease, it has no effect on the others pathogens exteriors. " The 150 antigens found in vaccines represent a drop of water in the ocean of the 10,000 billion bacteria and viruses that surround us and against which our immune system has constantly responded since our birth "Insists Jean-Nicolas Tournier. In addition, even diseases believed to be mild like the flu can be fatal if complications arise.

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