Many scientists have questioned whether aluminium, a long-used vaccine ingredient, is connected to children’s allergies and asthma.
Despite the fact that a recent study with federal funding discovered a potential connection, experts claim the report has many flaws and should not be used to alter current immunisation recommendations.
The study makes no claims that aluminium is the cause of the respiratory disorder, and authorities say further research is required to try to validate any relationship that may exist—which wasn’t discovered in earlier studies.
According to Dr. Matthew Daley, the study’s principal author, even if a connection were to be discovered, the life-saving advantages of the immunizations would probably still outweigh the risk of developing asthma. But it’s possible that if the results are confirmed, it could prompt new work to redesign vaccines, he added.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Dr. Paul Offit is concerned that the poor study would unnecessarily scare some families away from effective immunizations.
Offit stated that ‘making an extraordinary claim requires an extraordinary body of proof. That kind of proof is not provided by this study,’ he claimed.
He and other outside specialists pointed out that Daley and his associates were unable to account for the impact of other potentially significant routes of exposure to aluminium in youngsters, such as the air or nutrition.
Inconsistencies in the results that are difficult to explain, such as why additional aluminium exposure in one subset of thousands of fully immunised children did not appear to be associated with a higher chance of developing asthma, were also noticed.
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