Do vaccines harm our health?
Do vaccines harm our health? Do they cause autism and infertility? Or do they alter DNA? How to answer these questions in an age of rampant misinformation and growing doubt?
We dismiss all these rumours! Vaccinations play a key role in preventing and controlling the spread of infectious viral and bacterial diseases. It was thanks to mass vaccination that the World Health Organisation was able to announce in 1980 that smallpox, which had a mortality rate of almost 75%, had been completely eradicated! The cure of smallpox is one of the greatest successes in the history of the fight against infectious diseases.
When we are vaccinated, often when we are children, we do not think about what vaccines protect us from and how much we owe them. First and foremost, they protect our lives – they prevent infectious diseases by helping to create immunity against specific diseases: polio, measles, mumps, septicaemia, meningitis and encephalitis and many others. They contribute to the creation of so-called collective immunity. In the case of international travel, vaccines protect us against typhoid fever or yellow fever, for example. They also prevent a variety of complications.
Vaccines also allow us to respond to new threats, as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Let us remember that the safety of vaccines is based on rigorous scientific and clinical studies and numerous analyses before they are put on the market. The efficacy of vaccines is also followed up in detail after their introduction to the general public.
We must not forget that vaccines are currently helping to reduce the need for antibiotics, helping to reduce the growing problem of bacterial resistance and the lack of effective drugs. Vaccines reduce infections, reduce the need for antibiotics and promote public health. Unfortunately, given widespread multidrug resistance among bacteria, we are approaching the post-antibiotic era. We must focus our efforts precisely on vaccination and on the search for other alternatives, which we are working on at the University of Wrocław. Disinformation leads to fear and great harm. At the University of Wrocław, we discuss and fight myths.
Don’t believe in myths, trust science!
Dr Agata Dorotkiewicz-Jach
Dr Agata Dorotkiewicz-Jach
is a microbiologist employed at the University of Wrocław at the Faculty of Biological Sciences in the Department of Pathogen Biology and Immunology. Her main scientific interests focus on alternative antimicrobial therapies, where she conducts research on antibiotics in combination with anti-virulent compounds, bacteriophages and metals. In recent years, she has also been searching for new, effective preparations of plant origin. She is an experienced researcher and co-author of numerous scientific publications in reputed national and international journals, which have been cited more than 650 times. She reviews scientific papers and is a guest editor for special issues related to alternative therapies. She has also acted as manager and contractor in research grants.
In her work at the University of Wrocław, she is also involved in teaching and popularisation activities. She is an experienced lecturer in microbiology, alternative therapies, bacteriophages, bacterial resistance and pathogenesis, microbial ecology, the One Health approach and the relationship between health, human nutrition and the gut microbiota. For many years she was Deputy Director of the Institute of Genetics and Microbiology for teaching affairs, ensuring the quality of education in the accredited Microbiology course, which she co-founded. Dr Dorotkiewicz-Jach actively engages new generations of microbiologists in research by supervising numerous student projects at undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels. In addition, she teaches domestic and international students and is involved in popularisation activities.
