What are the ingredients of the anthrax vaccine?
Anthrax vaccine is a sterile product made from filtrates of microaerophilic cultures of an avirulent nonencapsulated strain of Bacillus anthracis. These bacteria are grown with very little oxygen (microaerophilic conditions). The bacteria cannot cause disease themselves (they are avirulent). They are from a strain of anthrax that does not have a capsule around the bacterial cells (they are nonencapsulated). This means that the vaccine is the solution that results after filtration of a culture of anthrax bacteria. If you’ve ever seen percolated coffee, you know that liquid coffee is the filtrate and the coffee grounds are what are left in the filter. In this example, the vaccine is like the cup of coffee. Anthrax vaccine is known officially to the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) as “Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed,” generating its abbreviation “AVA.” Adsorbed refers to the fact that the vaccine is deposited on the surface of (“adsorbed to”) a chemical called aluminum hydroxide. Aluminum hydro
