rd wrote:Thought I would throw this into the mix courtesy of the NZ medical profession.
https://www.elocal.co.nz/Articles/4096
Hopefully the medically qualified contributors on this page can shed some light on this article - it's a long one but very thorough and has a concise summary at the end.
I'd prefer to take our TGA more seriously that a fringe group of unidentified (alleged) doctors, or even real doctors who may have some predisposition to paranoid thinking. I'm confident the TGA would have looked into all the issues raised before giving approval to any product.
(Articles submitted to independent medical journals are reviewed by experts before being published.)
It is probably true that all vaccines, and, for that matte all medical treatments, carry some risks, but TGA approval means the TGA have reviewed the literature and have concluded any risks are much lower than the risks of not preventing or diminishing the effect of the illness and letting it go unchecked.
An example is my personal sensitivity to some azo-dyes used in colouring capsules. I once took a tetracycline containing capsule for an infection and had an uncomfortable reaction - flushing, mild pain and swelling, but I needed the antibiotic. So, I checked the details of the capsule and contents and concluded the likely cause was the azo-dyes used to colour the capsule itself, then I cut the capsules open and just took the contents. No problem then.
The colouring is something we would ideally do without, but it is used so that we can easily tell one capsule from another and avoid dispensing accidents - and such allergic reactions to dyes are uncommon and rarely serious.