Adjuvants! These are substances added to vaccines (and other drugs whose goal is to elicit an immune response) to enhance the immune response.
By adding these to the formulation, you may reduce the required overall dose of the vaccine or simply increased the efficacy. Other times an adjuvant isn’t included or doesn’t benefit the system.
The most common adjuvant is Aluminum in the form of an aluminum salt. The majority of vaccines use this adjuvant to boost the immune response of the vaccine.
*Note that in the graphic I mention the dose of aluminum per shot compared to an average daily intake via our diet. Aluminum may sound scary to inject but it’s the dose that matters. And this dose is incredibly small. The body recognizes very low amounts of adjuvant to do its job.
Other common adjuvants are derived from plants (squalene or QS-21) or are detoxified versions of naturally occurring toxins (MPL A).
The infographic above also gives information about which vaccines use which adjuvants if you’re curious! I also note that all typical forms of the seasonal flu shot do not use adjuvant technology.
The Novavax, protein-based, vaccine is the furthest along Covid-19 vaccine using an adjuvant in its formulation (MPL A + QS-21)!
Posted on Instagram on January 6, 2021.