Help me understand...germs in vaccines vs. germs in everyday life

[jupitermama]

So it seems like lots of parents these days (myself included!) are leery of the multitude of vaccines that the "experts" recommend that babies receive these days.  A popular point that the pro-vaccine camp likes to argue is that supposedly children are exposed to way more germs on a daily basis, just living on this planet, than they are ever exposed to through vaccinations.  However, almost everyone can agree that fever is a fairly common side effect of most, if not all, vaccines. 

This confuses me...because if this were true, wouldn't a good portion of the population constantly have a fever due to all those bad germs out there??  How come only after receiving vaccines do many children spike a fever??  (besides when they get sick of course).  I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that vaccines supposedly have so few germs compared to what kids experience in general, yet fever is such a common side effect with vaccines a good portion of the time...fever means your body is fighting an infection, right?  Could someone please explain this to me?  I hope I explained this ok, it is really hard for me to put my thoughts on this into words.

[ma2two]

Good point. I've never thought about the fever.

But I always roll my eyes at the antigen, or "number of germs" argument, because of course, vaccines are much more than some germs you breathe in or eat or get on your skin and mucous membranes. They are injected, bypassing all the natural defenses, and of course they have many more ingredients than just the actual "germs!"

[KempsMama]

I think the key there is "exposed to".  We are exposed to many germs each day, but things like sanitary conditions, our nose hairs, and other defense mechanism's protect us before we reach the point of fever.  Vaccines, because the virus or bacteria bypasses many of those mechanism's and is a larger dose than we would come across in the wild, hit harder. 

[BeckyBird]

You should also look at the adjuvants in vaccines. Here's a quote from a CDC article:

"Adjuvants help promote an earlier, more potent response, and more persistent immune response to the vaccine."

From: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm

[Xerxella]

There's also a real nice article about the adjuvant aluminum in vaccines.  http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1330821/aluminum-vaccine-adjuvants-are-they-safe  If you want to get in an argument with someone on any decision not to vax, this is a scholarly published article about excessive exposure to the aluminum in vaccines and the known consequences of aluminum, including the neurological implications.  Maybe the aluminum overdose is the cause of the fever? 

[LisaSedai]

Well my 2 cents is this

500 to 1000 different species of bacteria live in the human body. (Skin, gut, eyes, vagina, mouth, ect)  Everyone is carrying around trillions of microbes- some are beneficial and some have no known effect. You have a "normal flora" of happy germs that don't make you sick- (like the ones living in your vagina) but if you take antibiotics you can kill off your good germs along with a bad germ you were trying to get rid of, which can lead to an invasion of a germ (or yeast or whatever) that is not your normal flora and makes you sick. So yes, we are exposed to millions of germs daily... but they are not necessarily able to make us sick.

The germs in live vaccines are germs that can make us ill. How likely would it be to be exposed to several diseases all at once (flu,chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella) in nature? Also I agree w/ the PP that the way you are exposed to these germs makes a difference. Normally you would be breathing in these germs. Injecting them bypasses your body's first lines of defense.

It irritates me when people say there is aluminum in breast milk and formula, there is mercury in tuna fish blah blah because your body deals with things that go through your digestive tract differently than things that are injected.

[cappuccinosmom]

Because the vaccines are intended to provoke an immune response, which can involve fever, and because they deliberately bypass the body's defense mechanisms (skin, mucus, etc).  That's kind of the point of the vaccination, with the intention/hope that the artificially prompted immune response will give the body a better defense against the diseases if they contract them naturally.