Can too many vaccines overload or suppress the natural immune system?
The increase in the number of vaccines and vaccine doses given to children has led to concerns about the possible adverse effects of the aggregate vaccine exposure, especially on the developing immune system. In day-to-day life, all children and adults confront enormous numbers of antigens (substances that provoke a reaction from the immune system) and the immune system responds to each of these in various ways to protect the body. Studies of the diversity of antigen receptors indicate that the immune system can respond to an extremely large number of antigens. In addition, the number of antigens received by children during routine childhood vaccination has actually decreased compared with several decades ago. This has occurred in spite of the increase in the total number of vaccines given, and can be accounted for by the removal of 2 vaccines – smallpox vaccine (which contained about 200 different proteins), and whole-cell pertussis vaccine (about 3000 distinct antigenic components) f
