Harpocrates Speaks: Demystifying Vaccine Ingredients - Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a rather strong odor, made up of a carbon atom, two hydrogen atoms and an atom of oxygen, CH[SUB]2[/SUB]O. It has very potent antibacterial and antifungal properties
Facial tissues, paper towels, napkins, paints, foams, insulation all utilize formaldehyde. Perhaps its most famous use is in embalming, the preservation of dead tissues, at least for a short while.
With the ubiquitous manufacture and use of this chemical, questions about its safety naturally arise.
OSHA has
rather extensive guidelines on its safe use and health effects. Acute, short-term exposure to large amounts can be fatal. Long-term chronic exposure to inhaled or topical formaldehyde can result in respiratory illnesses, skin irritation and has long been a suspected carcinogen. In 2011, the U.S. government
changed its designation from "reasonably likely" to cause cancer in humans, based on cancer studies in animals, to "known carcinogen". Ho
wever, these health issues are primarily a risk for those who regularly work with large, industrial quantities of the substance; they are exposed to much higher levels than the rest of us
... in addition to off-gassing from products like carpet, upholstery and combustibles,
formaldehyde is all around us
The NIH Report on Carcinogens, 12th Edition,
profile on formaldehyde states that
it is in the "air, soil, food, treated and bottled drinking water, surface water and groundwater". Our primary route of exposure is breathing it, indoors or outdoors. Much of this inhaled formaldehyde comes from car exhaust, tobacco smoke, power plants, forest fires and wood stoves
What many people may not know is that our own bodies produce and use formaldehyde as a part of our normal metabolism
When we are exposed to methanol (e.g., via inhalation or
ingestion of foods like citric fruits and juices, vegetables or fermented beverages), our bodies break it down into formaldehyde and other byproducts.
Our bodies produce formaldehyde as a result of DNA demethylation (an
important process for controlling gene expression, e.g., in developing embryos) and other biological processes. It is such a regular part of human metabolism, that our normal, naturally produced blood concentrations are generally
about 2-3μg of formaldehyde per gram of blood (or about 2.12-3.18μg/mL)
*. And it is actually a pretty important chemical; our bodies use formaldehyde to form DNA and amino acids (
Toxicological Profile for Formaldehyde [PDF], ATSDR, 1999).
Looking at the
recommended schedule of vaccines from the CDC, let's pick the vaccines from that list that a child might receive in their first 6 years of life (picking the highest amounts, just for illustration). Note, not all of these are actually required for school entry and lower formaldehyde content vaccines are available for most of these:
- HepB - Recombivax - 3 doses (birth, 1-2 mos. and 6-18 mos.) - 7.5μg/dose
- DTaP - Infanrix - 5 doses (2 mos., 4 mos., 6 mos., 15-18 mos. and 4-6 yrs.) - 100μg/dose
- Hib - ActHIB - 3 doses (2 mos., 4 mos. and 12-15 mos.) - 0.5μg/dose
- IPV - IPOL - 4 doses (2 mos., 4 mos., 6-18 mos. and 4-6 yrs.) - 100μg/dose
- Influenza - Fluzone - 7 doses (6 mos., 12 mos. and yearly 2-6 yrs.) - 100μg/dose
- HepA - Havrix - 2 doses (12 mos. and 6-18 mos. after first dose) - 100μg/dose
That's all of the vaccines on the recommended schedule for 0-6 years that contain formaldehyde. If a child got all of those doses all at once (which they never would), they would get a total of 1,824μg, or 1.824mg, of formaldehyde. A
3.2kg (~7lb) newborn with an
average blood volume of 83.3mL/kg would naturally have, at any given time, about 575-862μg of formaldehyde circulating in their blood. By the time they are 6 years old (~46lb or 21kg), they'll naturally have 3,562-5,342μg of formaldehyde in their blood. Bear in mind that the formaldehyde from each shot will not build up in their bodies from shot to shot, as it is very rapidly (within hours) metabolized and eliminated as formate in the urine or breathed out as CO[SUB]2[/SUB].
So what's the most a child might get in a single office visit? That would probably be at their 6 month visit (when they are, on average, 16.5lbs or 7.5kg) with HepB, DTaP, IPV and flu, for a total of 307.5μg.
That is about 160 times less than the total amount their body naturally produces every single day*. Compare that to the 428.4-1,516.4μg of formaldehyde in a single apple.
*With a blood half-life of about 1.5 minutes, this means that
the human body produces about 50,000μg of formaldehyde