human foetus and chicken bits used in the MMR...

Robothell

Deals wrote: »

.......told us briefly how the jab had been cultured so my partner then said so "it would not rule the possibility of it being infected by Aids" or "bird flu" and the doctor told us no could not rule out but more chances of getting serious illness if we did not vaccinate.......

The vaccine could not become infected with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) unless someone on the production line, with HIV and a high enough viral load, contaminated the batch with their bodily fluids. As the process is done under strict aseptic technique (ie with little or no chance of introducing contamination) this is highly unlikely. I'm pretty sure they would have to do batch testing as well to make sure each one was up to standard.

Bird flu is slightly different in that the disease is spread by inhaling the virus H5N1.....there is no evidence that this infection is spread by contact with body fluids. Also, bear in mind that bird flu is not actually that readily transmissible to humans, although children are likely to be more susceptible than adults. The reason for the scare with bird flu is that it causes such a severe infection that there is a worry that it will mutate (like the common cold does frequently and the herpes virus does very infrequently- that's why you can get several colds but only get chicken pox once) into a form that will be more virulent and readily transmissible and cause a pandemic flu. This has thankfully not happened as yet.

Hope all this info helps......if you have any further worries you can email the NHS official info site on the second link in my last post.

floyd

Robothell wrote: »

The vaccine could not become infected with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) unless someone on the production line, with HIV and a high enough viral load, contaminated the batch with their bodily fluids. As the process is done under strict aseptic technique (ie with little or no chance of introducing contamination) this is highly unlikely. I'm pretty sure they would have to do batch testing as well to make sure each one was up to standard.

Well put :T

SUESMITH_2

oh dear me even in gps a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. i used to spend my working life doing cell and tissue culture and very occasionally egg cultures - one of our cell lines came from chinese hampster ovary cells but had been in existence since the 1920s - oh the animal rights protesters would have a field day. vaccine production is very tightly controlled for sterility and purity, every batch is very tightly controlled. i just had a vision of people grinding egg shells and then stirring them into a pot of vaccine

Deals_2

years ago now they did not have the testing procedures that exist nowadays we were told by the GP. i am not overly worried about it. fate is fate anyway. but for info might interest.

Robothell wrote: »

The vaccine could not become infected with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) unless someone on the production line, with HIV and a high enough viral load, contaminated the batch with their bodily fluids. As the process is done under strict aseptic technique (ie with little or no chance of introducing contamination) this is highly unlikely. I'm pretty sure they would have to do batch testing as well to make sure each one was up to standard.

Bird flu is slightly different in that the disease is spread by inhaling the virus H5N1.....there is no evidence that this infection is spread by contact with body fluids. Also, bear in mind that bird flu is not actually that readily transmissible to humans, although children are likely to be more susceptible than adults. The reason for the scare with bird flu is that it causes such a severe infection that there is a worry that it will mutate (like the common cold does frequently and the herpes virus does very infrequently- that's why you can get several colds but only get chicken pox once) into a form that will be more virulent and readily transmissible and cause a pandemic flu. This has thankfully not happened as yet.

Hope all this info helps......if you have any further worries you can email the NHS official info site on the second link in my last post.

floyd

PCR (polymerase chain reaction) which is used to screen vaccines for contaminating DNA has been around since the early 80's (You may have seen it being done on programmes such as CSI but in real life it doesn't only take 20 minutes to do!).
If anyone is interested, this doc linked by the WHO released in 2000 explains more about vaccine testing etc http://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue2/bu0337.pdf

patchwork_cat

Well call me a cynic then Robothell - I am suspicious of financial incentives - I also remember my late mother who was a dr telling me about the pertussis vaccination problems (in the 70's?). Frankly I do not like the governments attitude to treating us all like morons and not allowing us the information to make our own informed choice or influencing our medical advisors, be it positively or negatively.

If anything it makes me choose the opposite. I do feel that we are preached at to the lowest common denominator- remember all the Aids propoganda in the 80's and all the breastfeeding hype. Yes it may well be better for baby, but not always possible or practical for a million reasons, but people should not be forced to do something that is not right for them and the value of a father feeding his child should not be underestimated, or for that matter a better rested mum. Off at a tangent, sorry.

Need_More_Money_2

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Well call me a cynic then Robothell - I am suspicious of financial incentives - I also remember my late mother who was a dr telling me about the pertussis vaccination problems (in the 70's?). Frankly I do not like the governments attitude to treating us all like morons and not allowing us the information to make our own informed choice or influencing our medical advisors, be it positively or negatively.

They do allow access to the information, it's just that not many people are in a position to fully understand it. What information do you think is being hidden?

floyd

Need_More_Money wrote: »

They do allow access to the information, it's just that not many people are in a position to fully understand it.

Very true, there are instances when it is dangerous for people to have access to this information as they start making recommendations to people based on limited studies and inconclusive data. People who aren't trained to dissect and understand these articles take things at face value and that is how health scares start.
Science correspondents are sometimes the worst of the lot as they were trained in a single discipline but are employed to trawl the literature to find the next 'big story' across a multitude of areas

I am not saying that people shouldn't be allowed free access, on the contrary but people should be aware not to take everything people say they 'found in the literature' as gospel

GreenNinja

floyd wrote: »

I don't want to sound in any way patronising but I will explain the way they are made in the simplest of terms
Vaccines are not made FROM stem cells or chicken parts, they are made IN cells derived from these tissues. Basically, vaccines are composed of huge amounts of weakened virus so a vaccine against hepatitis, may contain the virus that causes hepatitis in an 'attenuated' or weaker form or a part of the virus that will kick-start the immune system to produce antibodies.

In order to make the huge quantities of virus needed for enough vaccines for the western world, the viruses are grown in a nursery-type environment to encourage fast growth. What better environment than their natural prey, mammalian cells.

Some vaccines are made in immortalised cell lines, these are cells that don't die in a similar way that cancer cells don't die. These cells could have come from a human foetus or a chicken embryo but they have been genetically altered so that they multiply continuously. The virus is introduced into the cell line and the virus replicates many many times.

In order to get the virus out of the cells, the cell walls are burst or 'lysed' so the virus can be purified. The viral DNA is super-purified. It is screened for purity so any contaminating virus such as HIV or H5N1 avian flu virus would show up due to its unique fingerprint or DNA code.

Because of these very stringent quality control procedures, it would be exceptionally difficult for vaccines to be contaminated with any rogue viruses.

Stories such as this are usually fuelled by the Catholic church (type in vaccines+human foetus and look at the first page of results) who think that any work performed on cells from human embryos is wrong so they do everything they can to discredit it.

If there is anything that is a bit fuzzy, I will do my best to clarify

Thanks for the info,very informative! :T