by Paul Oranika

Created on: November 25, 2009

Are vaccines safe or not? This is a good question which has no simple answers. Vaccines have been around for quite some time. They are very important in fending off all kinds of diseases. Vaccines have proved very important in controlling many tropical diseases still affecting many people, particularly in underdeveloped world. As important as vaccines are, they are also known to have disadvantages as well. Vaccines are medical products or compounds developed for use as immunity against certain infections and diseases. Their main feature is that they are capable of stimulating the body's defensive mechanisms against disease infections. Vaccines are capable of attaining this purpose without infecting or causing a symptom of illness. Even with all these potential benefits, vaccines are not 100 percent safe. This article discusses both sides of the the coin to give you the reader a more balanced perspective about the matter.

Although vaccines contain certain disease organisms, they are not generally capable of causing that particular disease in the body. One of their benefits to the body is that they energize and activate the body's immune system. When the immune system is energized, it is in a better position to fight and fend off other foreign organisms.

An outbreak may be new and not much is known about that disease. One of the first steps used by medical scientists is to understand the make-up of such a disease in terms of the active organisms causing the disease. It is easier to develop vaccines to control new disease outbreaks than to find a cure. So the first step is to develop a vaccine to prevent the disease from affecting too many people while a cure is being sought.

Some vaccinations can produce adverse reactions in the body. New vaccines in general can cause reactions in the body. Some of these minor reactions may include pain. Many vaccines can also lead to swelling at the point where the injection was administered. In some cases vaccination reactions could be severe and cause serious problems for the vaccinated person.

A vaccine may altogether lead to the development of another kind of disease. For instance, the polio vaccination is suspected of causing new kinds of disease. When a person is vaccinated with the polio vaccine, the immune system would fight off any polio virus. This can stimulate immunity against fighting all other enteroviruses, such as Epstein Barr virus, according to Dr. Eric N. Jones.

Learn more about this author, Paul Oranika.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.