If someone has a bad reaction to a vaccine does that mean they would also have a bad reaction if they got the actual disease? That would seem to make sense, right? Especially as many vaccines are just killed versions of the virus.
Not necessarily. Many vaccines involve eggs, and someone who is allergic to eggs would have a reaction to the vaccine, as I understand it.
Few vaccines these days are produced in eggs and thus there is limited potential for reactions in those allergic to eggs.
“Influenza and yellow fever vaccines are produced in eggs, so egg proteins are present in the final product and can cause allergic reaction. Measles and mumps vaccines are made in chick embryo cells in culture, not in eggs. The much smaller amount of remaining egg proteins found in the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine does not usually cause a reaction in egg allergic children.”
That could very well happen. Much has been made (in antivax circles) of a particular case involving a child with a rare mitochondrial disorder whose subsequent neurologic complications were blamed on the vaccine. Kids with this type of disorder are susceptible to complications of infectious diseases and are generally urged to get vaccines to help prevent them.
“We know that sometimes children with mitochondrial diseases seem to be developing as they should, but around toddler or preschool age, they regress. The disease was there all the time, but something happens that “sets it off”. This could be something like malnutrition, an illness such as flu, a high fever, dehydration, or it could be something else…As of now, there are no scientific studies that say vaccines cause or worsen mitochondrial diseases. We do know that certain illnesses that can be prevented by vaccines, such as the flu, can trigger the regression that is related to a mitochondrial disease.”
There are not necessarily exact parallels to the types of serious reactions seen rarely from vaccines and the much more common serious complications/sequelae
of the infectious diseases they prevent.
I have a much MUCH worse reaction to flu vaccine than to actual flu because I am allergic to the egg proteins in the vaccine, not the dead flu virus in the vaccine.
(Oddly enough, I can eat eggs, but apparently injecting egg proteins directly into my blood stream causes my immune system to go into a screaming panic and send me into shock.)
Aaaaah. My daughter is 32, so I no longer have to deal with vaccines on a regular basis, other than my flu shot every year, and a tetanus and pneumonia shot every few years, so I didn’t know that eggs aren’t usually used for most vaccines.
Yes, I’m one of the rare people who actually READ a statement before I sign it.