11 Vaccine Myths That Just Refuse To Die: Debunked

7. Myth: Ingredients Are Scary Because I Can’t Pronounce Them

Vani Hari, aka The Food Babe, once proclaimed “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it”, a statement that anti-vaxxers have taken and run with, applying the wonky logic to vaccinations. If this argument were any less intelligent I’d have to water it three times a week. The most demonised ingredients are aluminium salts and mercury.

Aluminium salts are a type of compound that have gained attention from the anti-vaxxer community. It has been claimed that aluminium can cause heavy metal poisoning despite the fact that – while aluminium is a transition metal – the compounds used in vaccines are classed as salts. The aluminium salts in some US licensed vaccines are aluminium hydroxide, aluminium phosphate, alum (potassium aluminium sulfate), or mixed aluminium salts.

Aluminium hydroxide is used as an antacid, as is aluminium phosphate. Potassium aluminium sulfate has a range of applications, one of which is in baking powder. These compounds as adjuvants in vaccines, their role is to increase the immune response to the vaccine which results in lesser quantities of the vaccine per dose and fewer doses over-all.

Aluminium and aluminium salts can also be found in food, breastmilk and infant formula both of which are ingested in a larger quantity per day than found in the total amount of vaccines given in the first six months of life.