to think that some vaccines should carry a 'Not Suitable For Vegetarians/Vegans' label?

[Beaaware]

Having read the information on the Prevenar 13 pneumonia patient advice leaflet I was shocked to see that there is no mention of its suitablility for vegetarians/vegans. This vaccine is given to babies, young children from 6 weeks to 5 years and to adults over the age of 50.
According to the patient advice leaflet on this particular vaccine there is no actual list of ingredients other than a mention that the vaccine includes exposure to Bovine derived material and that no evidence exists that any case of vCJD (human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy) has resulted from the administration of any vaccine product.
Of course joe public would not have the faintest idea where the bovine material is sourced from or even if it has been tested for bse, but clearly there is some cause of concern otherwise why do they mention this on the leaflet?
My worry is that there is insufficient labelling to warn people that some vaccines are not suitable for vegetarians, am I being unreasonable? We have the 'Vegetarian label symbol on food packaging but not vaccine packaging, Why?

So how do you stand on live vaccines grown in egg, such as influenza and MMR. Vaccines grown in animal cells are separated out before the process is completed. So no part of an animal is injected into a human.

Vaccination programmes are only effective if enough of the population are given the jabs. Because that what say are risking. If you make the argument that all process of manufacture of medicine should be declared for vegetarians/vegans to make an informed decision whether to accept the vaccine. The reality is for every person not vaccined threatens the population at large.

The ideal example of vaccination is Smallpox. Widespread vaccination virtually wiped out the disease from the Western World to the point where routine vaccination is no longer needed.

There is no such thing as a vegitarian vaccine. Do you think they have green houses full of special carrots and cucumbers that they use to churn out vaccines?

This must be the weirdest Aibu ever.

Yaban (you are being a nutter)

(as usual).

"I don't think aspirin would be authorised today for presciption free use because it has many nasty side effects..."

Going to sigh gently as at the OP's hobbyhorse although I am also impressed at the latest angle she is going for, but just need to correct this misconception from nickel.

Aspirin would be passed now and it has very, very few side effects really.

The main one is that it can cause an increased risk GI bleeding (2.5 events per 1000 people years, compered to 1.5 events per 1000 people years with a placebo). 769 people would needed to be treated with low-dose aspirin for one extra person to be harmed with major bleeding.

People certainly don't die of heart attacks/strokes etc as much with it, and it may be preventive against cancer.

Nickel, stem cell research would never take the place of animal testing for new meds anyway, even if it werent extremely expensive and with a very limited use. There is a certain amount of computer modelling testing that can replace some animal testing, but unfortunately there is no method that even comes close to being able to predict the action of a drug on a whole body system, or the reaction of a whole body system to a drug. Hence the need for animal testing; unfortunate, but sadly true.

What i mean is that we are a very long way off from, if ever, having a viable alternative to animal testing for new drugs, including vaccines.

I don't think there is anything wrong with labelling medical products such as vaccines and medicines (many pill capsules are gelatine based). It allows people to make an informed decision.

I don't eat pork products, including gelatine sweets, for religious reasons. However I do take pills made with gelatine, and think anyone who does not (or worse does not allow their DCs to take them) is a numpty.

Does it matter to people with religious objections to pork and /or beef?

I don't care if vegetarians don't get vaccinated, it's their loss and Darwinism gets a chance.

we are injecting substances directly into our blood stream

No we are not. Vaccines are injected into the muscle. Not blood stream.

Also: YABU

Taggie - within Judaism, medication like vaccines where it's been completely altered from its natural form it is usually seen as fine non-food. Pills with a pork gelatine coating or similar we would seek an alternative (though would take it for life saving treatment obviously, saving/preserving life is pretty much all important).

Find it a bit bizarre that the op can find some relatively obscure info about the ingredients but didn't know that every single medicine including the over the counter stuff would have been tested on animals.

I am not against vaccinations I just think that it is odd that vaccines do not come with ingredient labels for the public to read and make an informed choice, we have this choice with food so why not vaccines? simple as that, but thanks for your opinions, had a blast reading them.

You can read all the ingredients, as I said at 14.25, it is all in the public domain.

I think potentially saving a child's life is more important than if it's vegan

Pictureperfect, if a vaccine containing bovine derived material saves a vegan childs life, fine, see your point, but do bear in mind that 4000 haemophilliacs have been infected with vCJD contaminated blood and could develop this incurable disease at anytime during their lifetime, check taintedblood.info, they had no choice, no protection.

Beaware i frequently find your cjd obsession a bit confusing but you know, i'm kind if agreeing with this one.

Drugs should be clearly labelled animal or non-animal.

If you firmly object to eating animal products why is it ok to accept animal in vaccines (and drugs).

Hey, did you know most baby milk is not vegetarian, and definately not vegan. There is only 1 vegan milk available.

Yanbu, we all should have the right to know these things, there are lots of vegetarians and vegans these days and the information should be given. Food labels have the info so medicines should too because she are going into peoples bodies aswell

Pills all have to carry information stating if they carry any of the 14 main allergens. For example, when my DS3 gets older, if he took Piriton tablets to try to calm an allergic reaction, he could actually end up with a more severe anaphylaxis (to an antihistamine!) because it contains Lactose.

He is allergic to Cows Milk Protein in all it's forms, and in the minutest of traces.

I have to do extensive research on bloody mince before I feed it to him.

He currently hasn't had his MMR, despite being 21mo, on the advice of his Allergist, as we are unsure if it will provoke an allergic reaction like his second DTP did. He is too young to have been tested for all 14 major allergens, but he goes into anaphylaxis from CMP and Nuts, and is also highly allergic to soy.

I CAN understand medicines needing to be clearly labelled for even the minute chances of cross contamination of the 14 major allergens.

What I can't see is that labelling a medicine as vegetarian when vegetarianism is not a life threatening issue, is being entirely sensible.

And if we have Mad Cow disease, it'll be from the prion-riddled burgers we ate in the 80's, not from modern herds.

CouthyMow....thankyou for posting this info, sounds like a nightmare situation for you and your son, but highlights the importance of labelling anything we put into our bodies. With regards to the mad cow disease, you are right millions ate infected beef back then, and you would have thought that cows no longer developed this disease, but they still do. Only recently a cow imported from the Uk to Switzerland had bse, there are many questions about this but that is another discussion, pm me if you want links to the story, human blood and plasma are another grey area as I have mentioned re: haemophiliacs.

GrrrArghZzzz

I agree with you re HeLa cells. Also liking the idea of racists turning down medical treatment!

I have never seen the labels or packaging for any vaccine I've ever had. Surely the patient doesn't normally see this, so what would be the point?

I am vegetarian, don't eat meat or drink milk because there are good alternatives available to me and I can have, and personally prefer to have, a perfectly healthy diet without them. I have no problem taking vaccines or medicines where there isn't a good alternative though.

found this site today

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vaccine_ingredients

so many vaccines with bovine material