Why does the polio vaccine leave a mark/scar on the arm? And, am I right that the mark used to be even bigger? My mother’s polio vaccine mark was about the size of a quarter; now they’re much smaller.
Other vaccines don’t leave marks; why does polio?
Here’s an ancient thread on the subject. Apparently the consensus is that it was the smallpox vaccine rather than the polio vaccine.
I have one, and when I was a youngster it was about the size of a dime. It’s a bit larger now :(.
I had the Salk polio vaccine as a child and have no scar from the injection. My BCG scar, however, is quite large and raised.
I’ve always wondered that about Vaccines. I had all my vaccines as a child and have no scars from them at all, I’m a 30 year old American. My mother has a scar on her arm from her childhood vaccines and she’s in her 50’s and American as well. My boyfriend, who is Irish and roughly the same age as me, has a vaccine scar as well which is slightly bigger than the one my mother has. I’ve always wondered which vaccine caused this scar, especially the one my boyfriend has since i don’t have one and we’re the same age just from different countries. Were the vaccines between Ireland and the USA that different in 1981, interesting for sure.
No cites (I’m sure I could find some, but I’m lazy this morning :D), but I’m reasonably certain you are talking smallpox, not polio.
The scar was the result of the small pox vaccine, not polio. The Polio vaccine, if you recall, can be administered orally (sugar cube). As small pox has been eradicatedm there is need for the vaccine, hence the telltale scar is no longer seen. You must be of a certain age to have the mark.
As for why the scar occured… I believe the injection was sub-cutaneous and the skin ddn’t like it.
Sabin is administered orally. Those of us who are old enough were injected with Salk vaccine. It didn’t leave a scar, though. Only memories.
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1979 (the last recorded case of natural infection was in Somalia in 1977) and vaccination stopped a few years before or not long after in various countries, depending on local conditions.
In Norway mandatory vaccination stopped in 1976. I was born in '75 and have the scar, my younger brother in '77 and doesn’t. The last vaccinations performed in Norway were in 1980.
ETA: My point being, if it wasn’t self evident, that your boyfriend’s and your age are in the right time frame for vaccinations to still be performed in some countries and not in others.
The smallpox vaccine is (was) administered by repeated poking with a little forked needle coated in vaccinia virus. The resulting “holes” first swell, then blister and fill with pus. This is what leaves the scar.
The injectable polio vaccine, as noted, does not normally cause scarring.
I recall a kind of “vaccine gun” with spinning blades, something like an electric razor.
What about the TB vaccine? I have one and there’s a scar on my upper thigh. It’s smooth and kind of pinkish. Is there anything creepy about the way that vaccine is administered?
That was the method used to eradicate it, since it was simple and easy. But before that, they’d put a drop of the vaccine on your arm and then scratch the skin with a sewing needle or pin (sterilized, of course). The site would develop a pustule that would fade after a few days, and leave a scar.
Testing revealed that only a minimal amount of scratching/poking was necessary to perform an effective innoculation of the smallpox vaccine. That’s why you’ll see some people with big honkin’ scars, others with small ones.
Then too, some individuals develop keloids in scar tissue, so all scars are larger than the original wounds.
TB is not a vaccine, it is a test to see if your body is sensitized to the TB bacterium. A small amount of the TB bacteria would be deposited under the skin. A reaction would indicate that at some time, the person had been exposed to TB. It does not indicate an active infection, and it will always show positive, for the rest of your life.
As with the smallpox vaccination, it was discovered that much less material was needed for a definitive test. The test evolved from a syringe and needle actually injecting a small pocket under the skin, to a tablet-sized device that contained four mini-needles that barely pierced the skin.
Many people had a bit of scar tissue develop from where the needle was injected. It wasn’t indicative of a positive reaction, it was just the response to the injury of the needle piercing.
~VOW
The TB test used in NZ had a multineedled device that was sprung against your skin, a bit like a stapler but it barely scratched the surface. Any resulting inflammation or swelling indicated previous exposure to TB but not necessarily an active disease. My skin reacted, possibly because as a farm kid, I drank non-pasteurised milk and was exposed to bovine TB.
The BCG inoculation was by subcutaneous injection which was what caused the pustule and subsequent scarring. I remember it taking several weeks to heal and of course the site was a target for nasty schoolboy attacks because it hurt so much if it was hit.
Wiki research indicates this was the Tine test. The device used is slightly different from that illustrated here.
Just adding that my older kids, now 25 and 23, had the oral polio vaccine as babies. By the time my now-ten-year-old came along, they had switched (back) to an injection. Apparently the oral vaccine used live virus and carried a small risk of polio infection. The shot uses a killed virus.
I was told today his was from the BCG vaccine
I didn’t know such things existed.
Do they still use the smallpox in the US military? I’ve heard that they do from a friend of a friend.
My mom told me that my pediatrician thought I was such a beautiful baby that he didn’t want me to have a vaccine scar on my arm. So he administered the vaccine in a butt cheek instead. I never looked around back there thoroughly enough to find the scar. This would have been about 1971. I’m sure he wasn’t the only doctor to do this, so I would bet that’s why not everyone of age to have one, doesn’t have one that’s obvious.
Read The Demon in the Freezer, if you think smallpox is not still a threat. It was eradicated in the public domain, but strains were kept alive in weapons labs in both the Soviet Union and the USA. Weaponized smallpox was (and possibly still is) a very real threat. The smallpox vax you were given as a child has been ineffective for a very long time, since it only protects you for about five years. People who work in labs where contamination is a possibility get boosters every year.