How a Vaccine Is Like a Banana — and Why That's Good

For once, the antivaccine folks might be onto something. Want to see just a few of the chemicals that get pumped into the bodies of babies from the average vaccine? Try these: 2-methyl-butyraldehide, ethyl ethanoate, tocopherol, alpha-terpanine and a wicked slug of terpinyl-acetate. It’s a wonder our kids ever make it out of babyhood. Oh wait, my bad! Those aren’t the ingredients in a vaccine. Those are the ingredients in a blueberry. And the same is true for bananas and eggs too.

  The surprising ingredients found in vaccines

Scientists add some bizarre things to vaccines, such as aluminium and extracts from shark livers. Many vaccines simply don’t work without them – but no one knows why.

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  Moderna and Pfizer Are Reinventing Vaccines, Starting With Covid

he two leading vaccines, including one developed by BioNTech, are based on a new gene-based technology that could help fight a range of diseases.

  The places in the world that still appreciate vaccines

It’s an unfortunate truth of this world that the people most benefiting from a system are the least likely to acknowledge how great it is—vaccines are just one example.

  Beyond COVID: mRNA Vaccines May Treat Cancer and More

This plug-and-play technology is revolutionizing vaccinology.

 One Problem With Flu Shot? Not Enough People Get It

Each year, influenza sickens millions of people. But typically, too few Americans get the flu shot to shield everyone from the contagious disease. For maximum protection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that 70% of Americans should get the shot. In the last decade, fewer than 50% were vaccinated annually, and sometimes, the level dipped as low as 42%.

 Waldemar Haffkine: The vaccine pioneer the world forgot

Working in Paris and India at the turn of the last century, Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine created the world's first vaccines for cholera and plague. Then an accidental mass poisoning derailed his life.

A key tool in the race against drug resistance: vaccines

Drug resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health today. Vaccines can help.

This Is Why Every Parent Should Fully Vaccinate Their Children

It's one of the most important decisions you'll ever make in your life: do I vaccinate my child, and do I do it according to the CDC's recommended timetable? There's a lot of information out there from groups that both encourage and discourage vaccination. While some of what's out there is downright false, it truly is a complex issue.

Vaccines, explained

Vaccines are one of the biggest breakthroughs in public health — eradicating deadly diseases like smallpox and saving untold numbers of people since they were first developed in the 18th century. Today, vaccines are being readily deployed across the world to combat potentially deadly diseases like the flu, polio, and measles. But there remains a lot of misinformation about vaccines: about how they work, about their effectiveness, and particularly that they’re somehow tied to other, unrelated health issues. The misinformation has inhibited public health goals to vaccine as many people as possible and stop the spread of dangerous pathogens, damaging the potential effect of one of humanity’s greatest tools in health care.

What diseases have vaccines eradicated?

So far, we’ve used vaccines to entirely wipe out two diseases: smallpox and rinderpest, which infects cattle. We’ve also come extremely close to eradicating polio, with less than 500 new cases annually, largely in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. In the United States, a long list of diseases have been nearly eradicated by vaccines: diphtheria, bacterial influenza, measles, mumps, rubella, and tetanus, among others. Still, there are many developing countries that have limited vaccine supplies and scant funding for childhood vaccination services, which has allowed preventable diseases like whooping cough and rotavirus to continue spreading.

Synthetic Biology Could Bring a Pox on Us All

New methods are making it easier than ever to produce life-saving vaccines—and life-taking viruses that humanity is not prepared to fight.

The vaccines of tomorrow

We now have vaccines widely available for many of the most common illnesses, such as measles and mumps. This shift in vaccine development allows us to work on potential solutions for global health threats and emergencies, such as newly emerging flu strains and future influenza pandemics, that have previously been deemed impossible.

The Vaccines You Need During Pregnancy

‘For 30 years, no one wanted to touch a pregnant woman with a vaccine.’ Now, they’re indispensable life-savers for both mother and baby.

This Is the Truth About Vaccines

Deadly diseases that should be seen only in history books are showing up in our emergency rooms.

Vaccines of the future could be as contagious as viruses

The vaccines we have today are pretty incredible. They've eradicated smallpox, purged rubella from the Americas, and save millions of people each year from dying of diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, and measles. When enough people get vaccinated, infectious diseases can't spread easily and everyone benefits from herd immunity. But it's hard to reach enough people for this to happen, especially in areas with poor public health infrastructure.

Vaccines work. This chart proves it

Vaccines are incredible: they reduced the number of cases of Rubella from 47,745 to six, more than 99 percent. Its now a disease so old and uncommon that, even though we get vaccinated for it, most of us don't really know what it is (its a bit like measles, but also different.) Vaccines are the sole reason there have been 100 percent declines in diseases that used to effect tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Vaccines—Calling the Shots

Examine the science behind vaccinations, the return of preventable diseases, and the risks of opting out.

Bill Gates: Vaccines Save Lives

Bill Gates discusses the incredible lifesaving power of vaccines. In particular, he highlights the case of polio, which is 99 percent eradicated and within reach of being the second disease to ever be completely eliminated from the world.

By the Numbers: Vaccines Are Safe

Americans have received billions of doses of vaccines for everything from measles to the flu. In 30 years, very few injury claims have been filed with the federal government.

Just How Safe Are Vaccines? Here Are the Numbers

For each approved vaccine, researchers have determined that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Malicious bots and trolls spread vaccine misinformation – now social media companies are fighting back

Social media have become one of the preeminent ways of disseminating accurate information about vaccines. However, a lot of the vaccine information propagated across social media in the United States has been inaccurate or misleading. At a time when vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise, vaccine misinformation has become a cause of concern to public health officials.

Meet the Pro-Vaxxers Helping to Stave Off the Next Pandemic

As vaccine hesitancy grows, some individuals are responding by volunteering to take part in experimental vaccine trials.

Myths About Vaccines Are Hard to Dispel

A new study shows that when people are told the truth about side effects, they stick to misconceptions

One More Time, With Big Data: Measles Vaccine Doesn’t Cause Autism

A 10-year look at more than 600,000 children comes at a time when anti-vaccine suspicion is on the rise again.

People’s Fears About Vaccines Aren’t Just About Vaccines

The more we understand this, the better we can allay these fears.

The Absurdity Of Avoiding Vaccines

Some of the greatest achievements in medicine have been the development of safe and effective vaccines – vaccines that protect humanity from deadly diseases. We cannot allow poor judgement and bad science to limit the use of these medical miracles.

The Complicated Truth About Vaccines

They can appear to be the proximate cause of a condition when they have nothing to do with the ultimate cause.

The myth linking vaccines to autism gets debunked by the largest study to date on the subject

The Danish researchers designed a nationwide study that included 657,461 children born between January 1999 and December 2010. Over the course of a decade, the subjects participated in follow-up exams. Of those children—not all of whom were vaccinated—6,517 went on to develop autism. The scientists analyzed those data, and concluded that the relative risk of developing autism after being administered an MMR vaccine was 0.93—statistically non-existent.

The Vaccine War

The Vaccine War is a FRONTLINE co-production with the Palfreman Film Group.Vaccines have changed the world, largely eradicating a series of terrible diseases, from smallpox to polio to diphtheria, and likely adding decades to most of our life spans. But despite the gains and numerous scientific studies indicating vaccine safety a growing movement of parents remains fearful of vaccines.

The Vaccines You Need During Pregnancy

The Vaccines You Need During Pregnancy https://www.nytimes.com/article/pregnancy-vaccines-guide.html ‘For 30 years, no one wanted to touch a pregnant woman with a vaccine.’ Now, they’re indispensable life-savers for both mother and baby.

Vaccines Are Critical To Public Health, And Are Cost-Effective, Too

It's doubtful whether many who refuse to vaccinate are cognizant of the cost-effectiveness of vaccines, or indifferent. Nevertheless, it behooves public health authorities to remind all in society of vaccines' return on investment in addition to their health benefits.

Vaccines Are Not to Blame

A decade before the measles vaccine panic, parents feared this vaccine could harm their children.

Vaccines have health effects beyond protecting against target diseases

A measles vaccine protects against measles infection. By introducing a bit of weakened virus, the immune system learns how to deal with it, so when a real measles virus comes along, it can eliminate it. But does the immune system learn more from the vaccine? Recent research suggests, rather intriguingly, that it does.

We Deliver Vaccines to the World's Poorest, Hardest-to-Reach Children

The 2019 Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award is a gratifying validation of the work we do at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Why the Government Pays Billions to People Who Claim Injury by Vaccines

A little-known deal protects drug companies in the U.S. from being sued—and feeds conspiracy theories in the process.