DTaP

[PinkinPA]

I was looking through my daughters vaccination boo (23 months old) we stopped vaxing at 4 months. What I am wondering about is why so many doses of the tetanus portion? What my thought process was, when I was in my car accident in 93, they gave me 1 tetanus shot. Isn't that supposed to last 10 years? Is the dosage less for the child? Why give so many tetanus shots?

[MissRubyandKen]

The primary doses are supposed to establish immunity, the booster doses are to boost it.

[PinkinPA]

Ok, then. This establishes my concern. I was never required to go get boosted. Why are the children getting these boosters?

[Gitti]

Originally Posted by PinkinPA

I was never required to go get boosted. Why are the children getting these boosters?

It is supposed to be the same for everyone. One main dose and then a booster and when you are in an accident or have an accident, you get another booster.

It's all guess work. No scientific facts and it changes every so often when someone with a better idea comes along.

[Full Heart]

The first shot gives protection to most kids. Like 90%. The second gets another 5%, etc. Since not everyone develops immunity after the first shot, multiples are given. Children do not develop immunity as quickly and easily as adults do. It goes the other way as we age. By the time you are elderly you don't gain immunity any more either. Vaccines are totally useless for elderly as study after study has shown.

If you look at the catch up schedule you need 3 doses of the TD instead of the 5 if you are a young child. Also if a person was never vaxed and recieved a tetanus vax in a car accident or something they would need to go back and get more boosters...according to CDC of course. I'm not saying they have to lol.

[Gitti]

Originally Posted by Full Heart

The first shot gives protection to most kids. Like 90%. The second gets another 5%, etc.

This is how it works with vaccines that 'fight' viruses like measles, mumps, rubella, but this does not hold true with a toxoid vaccine like wc, tetanus, diphtheria.

[inchwormz]

Originally Posted by Gitti

This is how it works with vaccines that 'fight' viruses like measles, mumps, rubella, but this does not hold true with a toxoid vaccine like wc, tetanus, diphtheria.

Can you please explain further? Thank you!

[Gitti]

When we vaccinate 100 kids with the measles virus vaccine, about 90 of them will be immune. That leaves 10 that will not be immune.

So we vaccinate ALL kids with a second shot of measles and out of the 10 that didn't react, now maybe 2 or 3 more show some immunity.

So we vaccinate ALL kids a third time with measles and maybe another 2 or 3 kids will be immune then.

This is the reason for multiple shots of one virus. Not that all kids need that many shots to be immune but because they DO NOT KNOW how many are not reacting to the vaccine. This is why all kids get this same vaccine 3 times instead of one time.


As I understand it, a toxoid vaccine works differently. It works by building up a tolerance to the toxin of the bacteria. It's like getting used to smoking. We smoke one cigarette and we all gets you sick as a dog. We smoke a second one and we don't get quite as sick, the third one we starts to tolerate quite well... (poor exemple, I am just saying...)

This is why we (supposedly) ALL need a base vaccine and ALL need a booster. We are then up to our second cigarette. Then we should be pretty used to dealing with the toxin and in case of an accident they give us a third cigarette (tetanus) and this lets us (supposedly) tolerate the toxin should it take shape.

In 10 years (they guess) we need another booster to keep up our tolerance to the toxins (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis).