Vaccine Safety and Effectiveness

Vaccine Safety

Immunization is an important part of keeping our children healthy. Before we had vaccines to protect our children it was common for many, many people to become very ill with diseases, leaving them with scars, deformities, or even causing death. We can now prevent these diseases from hurting our children and family members by providing them with vaccines.

Vaccines are one of the safest tools in modern medicine and serious side effects are very rare. Normal side effects may include low-grade fever and redness and/or soreness at the injection site.

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Safety Checks are Top Priority

Health Canada takes vaccine testing very seriously. The Bureau of Biologics and Radiopharmaceuticals (BOBR) is a division of Health Canada that regulates all vaccines used in Canada. Vaccines MUST meet the BORB’s testing requirements for production, safety, and strength.

Vaccine monitoring systems are in place in Canada to monitor severe side effects related to vaccines. The Immunization Monitoring Program ACTive (IMPACT) and Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program (CPSP) monitor adverse vaccine events in Canada.

These groups carefully review information on specific vaccines and make recommendations on any action that should be taken, for example recommending that further research be completed before licensing the vaccine or changes about licensing the vaccine.

All vaccines are reviewed by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) who make final recommendations.

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Vaccine Effectiveness

Many parents often ask the question, "Do vaccines really work?" The answer is yes! Vaccines have proven to be safe and effective tools for preventing many life threatening diseases.

The introduction of vaccines has played a huge role in the decrease of many fatal diseases. In fact, many of these diseases are rarely seen anymore in North America. The statistics below clearly show a drop in disease rates after the introduction of vaccines.

(Adapted from the Canadian Immunization Guide 7th Edition)

Some people think that because we are living in cleaner environments, practice better hygiene, and have more advanced health care, we are no longer in need of vaccinations. While it is definitely true that good sanitation and hygiene behaviours play a large role in supporting good health, we still need vaccines to keep diseases under control. Countries with good immunization programs continue to see a decline in vaccine preventable diseases, while countries with poor or declining immunization programs see an increase in disease rates and in the number of deaths from these diseases.

For example:

• In 2000, Ireland saw more than 1200 cases of Measles, compared with only 148 in the year before due to a drop in immunization rates.
• In 1994, Russia had 5000 deaths due to diphtheria after their organized immunization program was stopped. In previous years Russia (like Canada) had only a few cases of diphtheria each year and no deaths.
• In 1999, a large outbreak of Rubella (German Measles) occurred in Nebraska. All 83 cases in this outbreak were adults who had not been immunized.

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