Reply #24: Even in Third World country, the Vaccine of TB is discouraged. [View All]

[happyslug]

The Vaccine is only to be given to people who are exposed to someone with TB and that exposure can NOT be stopped (i.e. children living with adults who have TB, but there is no where else for the Children to live). The main reason for lack of use of the TB vaccine is that given the low rate of TB in the US AND the rate one gets TB from the Vaccine, the Center for Disease Control's position is that to use the Vaccine would INCREASE the number of TB cases in the US not reduce them (i.e. more people will get TB from the Vaccine then would NOT get TB if vaccinated).

For more details see:
http://cdc.gov/tb/pubs/tbfactsheets/BCG.htm
http://www.who.int/vaccine_research/diseases/tb/vaccine_development/bcg/en/index.html
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/VaccineInfo/vaccine_detail.cfv?id=18

Remember the TB vaccine is a weaken form of TB. Thus you back to the Salk-Sabin polio vaccine debate. Sabin in considered superior, but it uses live polio virus which can evolve into full blown Polio. Salk used Dead polio Viruses, and thus while considered "weaker" than Sabin, Salk vaccine does NOT contain the risk of manifesting itself as full blown polio (When Salk first came out, do to a manufacturing error, a batch did produce Polio, but no cases of Polio leaked ot the Salk vaccine has appeared since that event in the 1950s, Sabin had cases from its introduction in 1964 to the time it was removed and replaced by the Salk vaccine do to number of people who came down with polio from using the Sabin Vaccine).

This is further complicated by the fact TB is a bacterial infection NOT a Viral infection. Vaccination works best on Viral infections, it is generally better to treat bacterial infections with some sort of penicillin type drugs (Which are ineffective against Viral infections). It is unknown to this day how your body defeats most Viral infections, but exposure to the Virus gives your body a better chance (Thus why we vaccine people, to expose them to a weaken or dead form of the virus so your body can develop anti-bodies and other agents to defeat the Virus quicker). Thus it is better to treat bacterial infections with penicillin type drugs (if effective on that disease, some are some are not) then to prepare the body to fight off the infection. The opposite approach is done for viral infections, given that they is little if anything one can do to help the body fight of the infection (Besides, rest, food and water).