Vaccines for Vegans & Vegetarians?

[Chinghehuang]

Recently I read that the MMR contains gelatine, what if you are vegan or vegetarian do you go ahead with non-vegetarian vaccines? Is this a concern for many people? Also what do Hindu families do when faced with vaccinating their children with gelatine derived vaccines?

I looked into this in some detail about 2/3 years ago (so things may have changed). Basically the difficulty is that vaccines are antigenic (bacteria, viruses, microorganism) and they have to be grown. They often need animal related substances to grow and viruses will only grow in living cells.

So animal products are often involved somewhere in the process (although that is very different to saying they are ingredients), and different makes of vaccine use different ingredients that would be more acceptable to vegetarians (although probably not to strict vegans).

In this particular case, the MMR made by Sanofi-Pasteur contains gelatine, but the one made by GSK (Priorix) contains lactose from cow's milk. Both are commonly used so you can check with your GP's surgery in case they need to order it in.

As with all issues about vaccination, it's a judgement call. I don't know about Hindus but the Jewish community recommend vaccination.