Although I should be able to answer this question, I couldn’t. My friend is a shop teacher, and he has a student who had an anaphylactic reaction to her last tetanus shot, meaning she can’t be vaccinated with it in the future (obviously). I’d be kind of uncomfortable not being immune to tetanus, especially since even in my ordinary life I’ve damaged myself on rusting and dirty things repeatedly. Do they have specially-compounded vaccines? Or would that be too tedious, given that there are so many things someone could be allergic to?
You need to be very careful here: was she allergic to the tetanus vaccine itself, or the medium? The swine flu vaccine is a case in point. There were two versions: the normal one which was cultured in eggs, and one which wasn’t for those allergic to eggs.
No, there are not specially compounded vaccines. For many vaccine preventable diseases those who truely cannot get vaccines for medical reasons are protected by virtue of being in the middle of the herd of those who can and are (unless you live around too many who refuse vaccines because they get their medical advice from the likes of Jennie McCarty). Tetnus though is not that sort of disease. On the plus side she is pretty well protected for the next ten years anyway. Anaphylaxis to vaccines or their components is very rare but non-zero (about 0.6/million). One option if she really really wants coverage in the future beyond ten years is to consider a desensitization approach.
That’s something I was wondering about, too. Unfortunately, it’s hard to ethically test someone when their reaction is potentially deadly.
DSeid’s desensitization approach makes sense, especially if it’s part of the medium she’s allergic to. Is there a lot of overlap in vaccines’ media?
I guess this falls into the “sucks to be you” category.
Most large centres will have a clinic run by allergists in which patients can be assessed and/or get the needed vaccines despite their allergies. is how one relatively credible centre handled H1N1.
As someone who has had allergies problems all my life - there are some vaccinations I just don’t get. Like flu shots. They say there’s one that shouldn’t give me a problem but it’s, apparently, not available in the US. It is certainly not available to someone such as myself, who is on a Public Aid type health insurance.
If enough other people get vaccinated I’ll benefit from herd immunity for communicable diseases.
Something like tetanus is a problem, though. Once this shot wears off it is unlikely the girl in the OP will be able to get another. If she is injured she will simply have to go without (and that’s actually a problem because giving a tetanus booster is a standard procedure after many types of accidents, so unless she’s conscious and alert there is a very real possibility she could get one when she shouldn’t and go into anaphylaxis on the spot) and if she comes down with tetanus the doctors will have to manage the symptoms until her body can deal with the toxin. Assuming it can.