A massive, 24-year-long study of more than 1.2 million children provides reassurance to parents around the world.
The research has found no compelling evidence that childhood vaccines lead to autism, asthma, or dozens of other chronic disorders.
Researchers in Denmark examined the safety of a specific vaccine ingredient – aluminum salts – which, despite frequent debunking, remains a common talking point among vaccine skeptics. Clinical trials have tested their safety extensively, and they’ve been used in non-live vaccines for more than 70 years to boost the immune system’s response to lower doses of medicine.
Related: Is There Thimerosal in Vaccines, And Is It Safe? Here’s What The Science Says
Though the salts contain aluminum ions, their chemical properties are quite different to those of pure aluminum.
“It’s really important for parents to understand that we are not injecting metal into children,” epidemiologist and senior author Anders Hviid from Statens Serum Institute in Denmark told NBC News.
“Our study addresses many of these concerns and provides clear and robust evidence for the safety of childhood vaccines.”
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From 1997 through 2020, Hviid and colleagues tracked the health outcomes of more than 1.2 million Danish children using a nationwide registry containing details on childhood vaccinations, diagnoses, and potential biases.
Some of the children were born at a time when fewer vaccines with aluminum salts were recommended. Others grew up when more were recommended.
Ultimately, a kid’s exposure to vaccine-related aluminum salts before age 2 was not significantly related to any of 50 chronic disorders, including 36 autoimmune, 9 allergic, and 5 neurodevelopmental conditions.
The lack of dose-dependent relationship between aluminum salts and a child’s ongoing health strongly suggests the ingredient is safe for use.
Edward Belongia, a retired epidemiologist who studied vaccine safety for decades and who was not involved in the current research, told Stat News that this is “the largest and most definitive observational study on the safety of vaccine-related aluminum exposure in children” he knows of.
He said it “should put to rest any lingering doubts” about the potential health risks.
While it’s true some animal studies have raised concerns over potential neurotoxic effects from exposure to the aluminum-based additives, those experiments involved high doses over long periods of time.
By comparison, the amount of aluminum salt used in childhood vaccines is miniscule – far below established safety levels.
Compared to other sources of aluminum ions in our everyday lives, which are ubiquitous, the amount that children ingest from vaccines is negligible.
Aluminum is an unavoidable part of our daily diets, with traces found in plants, soil, water, and air. Whether we realize it or not, the typical adult ingests about 7 to 9 milligrams of aluminum a day in various forms.
By some estimates, if infants receive all the vaccines they need in the first six months of life, that would amount to about 4.4 mg of aluminum. In that same time frame, breast-fed infants ingest about 7 mg of aluminum, and formula-fed infants ingest about 38 milligrams.
When aluminum adjuvants in vaccines are injected into muscle, they enter the bloodstream and are then processed by the kidneys and expelled.
In a study of 85 infants, aluminum concentrations in the blood and hair did not increase after receiving a vaccine. This suggests that aluminum concentrations in the body don’t accumulate or reach toxic levels after vaccination.
The World Health Organization notes that the level of aluminum after vaccination “never exceeds safe US regulatory thresholds… even for low birth-weight infants.”
Today, there is strong evidence to suggest aluminum adjuvants are safe for use in childhood vaccines.
Plus, each year, about four million deaths are avoided because of these immunizations.
Childhood vaccinations don’t threaten children’s lives, they save them.
The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
