Fact or Fiction?
Natural Immunity
FACT: Vaccines build your child’s immunity in a safe, controlled environment.
Lots of people want to live a green, natural life.
They want to keep toxins and things labeled “artificial” out of our homes and our bodies. Some people worry about vaccines and wonder if they are “natural.” They point to the ingredients (which can sound a little scary) and wonder if it would be better to avoid vaccines.
The truth is, all vaccine ingredients are tested to be safe. Each ingredient helps produce a strong immune response in your child’s body. This helps them fight off future infections.
What is natural immunity?
Some people who worry about vaccine safety may wonder if natural immunity is better. Natural immunity is the protection your body creates when you are infected with a virus or bacteria. Unfortunately, the only way to get natural immunity is to get sick—sometimes very sick.
Vaccines offer immunity without causing illness.
Vaccines, on the other hand, are designed to mimic the natural immune response of your child’s body without causing illness. Vaccines are safe because the viruses or bacteria used in them are dead (inactivated) or weakened (attenuated). Therefore, they do not cause illness. (Sometimes attenuated vaccines can cause a very mild infection, but this is almost always much less severe than infection from the disease itself.) Our bodies recognize these killed or weakened germs and create antibodies to protect us against a future infection. In this way, we trick our bodies into thinking we’ve already had the disease. We build immunity safely, without getting sick.
Both natural immunity and immunity from vaccination result in strong active immunity. However, the benefits of immunity from vaccines are greater. And, the risk is lower:
- Natural immunity typically lasts longer than the protection from vaccines. But, for some diseases, vaccines produce longer-lasting immunity. These include HPV, tetanus (DTaP), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and pneumococcal disease.
- Vaccines often protect against multiple strains of the germ that causes a disease. Infection only provides future protection against the strain that caused your infection. For example, influenza, HPV, polio, and Pneumococcus are diseases which have several strains.
- Not all infections offer life-long immunity to even a single strain (like pertussis, for example).
Natural immunity is risky.
The difference between vaccination and natural infection is the price paid for immunity. There are many potential costs of not vaccinating:
- About 1 in 1,000 children with varicella (chickenpox) develop pneumonia (lung infection) or encephalitis (brain infection or swelling).
- About 1 in 7 people who catch meningococcal disease die, even with treatment. Of those who live, 20% lose their arms or legs, become deaf, lose kidney function, or suffer seizures or strokes.
- Catching rubella while pregnant can cause birth defects. These include deafness, cataracts, heart defects, and liver and spleen damage.
- About 1 of every 2 infants born to a hepatitis B-positive mother will develop chronic hepatitis, and 1 in 4 children with chronic hepatitis will die from liver cancer or liver damage.
Overall, the risks of natural infection are much higher than the risks of immunization. For instance, measles infection causes encephalitis (brain infection or swelling) in 1 in 1,000 infected individuals. It kills 2 of every 1,000 infected people. Measles can also leave the immune system weak for weeks to months. This leaves kids vulnerable to other diseases for as long as three years. In contrast, the risk of encephalitis from the measles vaccine is 1 in 1 million.
Washing hands and covering coughs can help limit the spread of illness. But these practices only go so far. Most vaccines reduce the overall spread of disease and protect those who cannot get vaccines, like people with weak immune systems. These people are at increased risk for complications from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Vaccines are not 100% effective. However, they greatly decrease your chance of getting sick and your risk of needing to go to the hospital. There is no need for children today to suffer from preventable diseases. Both natural immunity and immunity from vaccines provide protection. But getting sick, or putting others in danger, just isn’t worth the risk.