Prevnar, the Pneumococcal Vaccine: What the Manufacturer's Insert Tells Us

What is Pneumococcus?
Pneumococcus is a bacteria commonly associated with pneumonia, but which can also cause meningitis, sinusitis, otitis media, osteomyelitis, and other infectious diseases.

Pneumococcus resides in the nasal passages and throats of about 10% of all adults and 40% of all healthy children at any given time. It is more prolific among groups in close proximity, including children in day care. 

Prevnar, the Pediatric Pneumococcal Vaccine
Wyeth Lederle manufactures Prevnar, designed specifically for infants and children. It is recommended that infants receive four doses, at two months, four months, six months, and twelve months.

Prevnar's Package Insert
With scientists and health professionals both supporting and condemning childhood vaccinations, it can be difficult for parents to make an informed decision about whether or not to vaccinate their children. One often overlooked resource is package inserts. The makers of vaccines provide inserts with every vaccine that describe, among other things, the ingredients, intended usage, contraindications, adverse reactions, and dosage.

The package insert for Prevnar can be viewed in its entirety here.

Prevnar's Ingredients
Prevnar is made using, among other things, a strain of Diptheria, against which people are vaccinated with the DTaP vaccine.

It also contains aluminum, frequently used in vaccines to activate the immune response.

According to WebMD, "Rome researchers compared adverse reactions from vaccines containing aluminum to those with no aluminum salts. The information they gathered was on children under 18 months and 10-16 years old. As expected, they found aluminum-containing DTP vaccines were more likely than plain vaccines to cause redness or skin hardening in the younger children. And the older kids had pain lasting up to 14 days with the aluminum-containing vaccines. But there was no evidence of any serious problems in either group getting vaccines with aluminum salts." (source link)