An Infant's Immune System

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccinations
by Stephanie Cave, M.D., F. A.A.F.P., Deborah Mitchell

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Infants come into the world with antibodies they have gotten from their mother through the placenta. Infants who are breastfed continue to receive many important antibodies in the colostrum (the thick, yellowish premilk that is secreted during the first few days after a woman gives birth) and breast milk. Commercial infant formulas, although inferior to mother's milk, also provide essential nutrients for infants' health.

During the first year of life, the immunity an infant gets from its mother at birth wears off. To help boost the fading ability to fight certain diseases, vaccines are given. The idea behind vaccines is to provide just enough of the disease-causing substance to trick the body into producing antibodies against it. Once the antibodies are produced, they stay around, protecting the child against the disease they were designed to fight. Some vaccines provide this protection for life after just one or two shots; others require additional “boosts” of immunity.

The problem many doctors and parents have with vaccines given during the first few months of life is that an infant's immune system cannot adequately respond to a vaccine until he or she is four to six months old. That's not to say that vaccines should not be given to children. They do save lives. However, I believe we need to look not only at the timing of these vaccinations-when they are given and how many are given at one time-but also at the ingredients in them and the dangers they may cause.

Wanted: Dead or Alive?

Vaccines have traditionally come in two basic forms: dead (inactivated or killed) or live. The vast majority of both forms are delivered one of two ways: via injection under the skin (subcutaneous) or into the muscle (intramuscular). (Polio and typhoid vaccines are also available in oral form.) In some cases, both live and killed vaccines are available to treat the same disease.

A third type of vaccine, the recombinant DNA vaccine, is the product of genetic engineering. It is the newest form but there are remaining questions about safety and efficacy.

Live Vaccines

Live vaccines are made in a laboratory from the living organism (usually a virus) that causes the disease. Live vaccines are attenuated, or weakened, so they will cause the body's immune system to generate an immune response without (hopefully) causing the disease. Some people, however, do respond to a vaccination by developing symptoms of the disease, although in most cases they are mild. Examples of live attenuated virus include polio (oral), measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella, and yellow fever. Live bacterial vaccines include one for typhoid fever and Bacillus-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, which is used for tuberculosis.

Some experts claim that the immune system responds to live, attenuated vaccines the same way it does to a natural infection; others disagree. In fact, even proponents of live vaccines agree that live vaccines can cause a mild version of the disease they are designed to prevent. People who question the wisdom of giving live vaccines, especially to infants and young children, say these vaccines may have much more serious consequences, pointing to the correlation with autism and autoimmune diseases.

Killed Vaccines

A killed, or inactivated, vaccine consists of all or part of the disease-causing organism that has been killed or rendered inactive. Unlike live vaccines, killed vaccines cannot reproduce, so they are not able to cause the disease they are designed to prevent. They trigger a weaker response by the immune system than do live vaccines. They also tend to be safer than live vaccines for people who have a weakened immune system, for pregnant women, and for children younger than one year.

Most killed vaccines are protein-based, like the bacteria they mimic. Some of these bacteria are coated with sugars called polysaccharides. When scientists tried to develop vaccines for sugar-coated bacteria, they found that pure polysaccharide vaccines didn't work well in infants. But when they joined (conjugated) the polysaccharide to a protein, the vaccines were much more effective for infants and young children.

Inactivated vaccines are used for the following diseases: cholera, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, Lyme disease, plague, pertussis (whooping cough), polio (injected), rabies, and typhoid.

Another type of inactivated vaccine are toxoids, which are made by inactivating the toxins (poisons) produced by bacteria and viruses. The vaccines against diphtheria and tetanus are toxoids.

Recombinant DNA Vaccines

Another type of vaccine is a recombinant DNA (genetically engineered) vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is one example. Rather than using the entire organism, recombinant DNA vaccines are made by taking specific genes from the infectious agent (for example, virus, bacteria) and adding them to the vaccine culture. For example, hepatitis B vaccine is made by inserting a portion of the hepatitis B virus gene into baker's yeast, the culture in which this vaccine is produced.

Experts say recombinant DNA vaccines are more effective and safer than other types of vaccines because they don't contain the entire infectious agent and thus cannot cause an actual infection. However, the greatest concern about recombinant DNA vaccines is that they may cause the immune system to produce antibodies, which in turn attack parts of the body and cause health problems. Much is still not known about the effects of recombinant DNA vaccines.

Copyright © 2001 by Stephanie Cave, M.D.

About the Author

I graduating from LSU with a B.S.in Medical Technology in 1966. I went back to Medical School at age 36 after having three children, fulfilling a dream I had had for years. I graduated in 1983 and completed a residency in Family Practice in 1986. Board certified in Family Practice. My practice was a typical family practice until the last couple of years. I now enjoy integrative medicine and I spend my time mapping out and normalizing chemistry for my patients. In the last 4 to 5 years, I have treated autistic children. My colleague, Dr. Amy Holmes, and I are seeing more than 700 autistic children. This is where the inspiration for the book started. We realized that there is a link between vaccines and the epidemic of autism that we are seeing. I set out to put together a way to give vaccines safely and effectively and the book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccinations, is the result.

Deborah Mitchell is a medical writer and journalist specializing in complementary medicine and nutrition topics. Her articles have appeared in professional journals, as well as national consumer magazines. She has authored and co-authored eleven books about various health topics, including Natural Healing for Back Pain, The Natural Guide to Headache Relief, The Dictionary of Nutritional Healing, Natural Aphrodisiacs, Natural Medicine for PMS and MSm: The Natural Pain Relief Remedy.