Part 7/10 - The Grand Debunk of the antivaxxer book Turtles all the way Down
The Grand Debunk continues with chapter 7, starting with this claim and moving methodically through each subsequent false and/or deceptive claim. Let’s dig in:

1. multiple vaccines and serious side effects when used in combination 
False. The core claim here is that people who promote vaccines are negligent in omitting the possible effects of compounded serious side effects when more than one vaccine is given at one time. Let me then list all the ways that multiple vaccines have indeed been tested in different combinations. An established four valent meningitis vaccine is being reviewed even in 2023. An adult DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccine is being tested in India (an Indian equivalent, for adults, of the DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccine typically given to infants in the United States). Dengue and Hepatitis A are being tested together. COVID mRNA vaccination and influenza vaccination have been tested together. All currently approved childhood vaccines in every country's vaccination schedule have been studied for their major contraindications, which are clearly labeled on the package (if antivaxxers choose to not read the package or the web-based insert, that's their fault). A possible link to febrile seizures has been found when influenza and PCV13 are administered together, and now people are warned about this. This ignores the fact that while febrile seizures are terrifying to look at, they are easily treatable by emergency physicians and neurologists. This particular project, although it focused on the safety of thiomersal containing vaccines in the 1990s, looked at safety issues with multiple exposures to DTP, IPV, and HBV, and found no issues. Ultimately this statement is another way to complain about how the entire vaccine schedule of the CDC was not tested in a randomized clinical trial versus completely unvaccinated kids, which is unethical in many, many ways, explained in great detail here.

2. Splitting up the vaccines because "it might strain the immune system" - 

This is far too simplistic of an analogy. The microstructure of a muscle is actually quite complicated, but overall, the muscle has a few key functions - receive electrical commands to contract, and then help the body do useful work. That's about it. The immune system is several levels more complicated than this, with different types of cells, antibodies, interactions with the body, and it isn't even all discovered yet. The body is exposed to billions of bacteria and viruses every day from the skin, breathing, and feeding tube/ gastrointestinal tract. People with intact immune systems aren't constantly getting life threatening infections from regular daily activity. The immune system can deal with plenty of viruses and bacteria, and it's very different from training a muscle. 10 extra antigens handed to the immune system won't overwhelm it. And this assumption (vaccines strain the immune system), in turn, is based merely on theoretical computations involving various immune system parameters and has no physiological evidence to back it up.
The most basic and most effective way to refute this is to count the number of different bacteria, virus, and fungi that are probing the immune system via your lungs and GI tract (open to the environment) every single day. This is probably something that students of immunology learn in their very first week, even before college. You will find the number of organisms counted is very, very large, and many of them want in (to the body). The immune system prevents that easily on a daily basis in the person with no inborn anomalies of the immune system. If we go by the author's logic which is to consider one vaccine one immune challenge, consider the following easy math calculation. The number of bacteria alone sitting in the GI tract is estimated at 100 trillion, which is definitely a larger number than the total number of vaccines a person receives in his/her lifetime. The immune system is holding back all those bacteria just fine. None of the numbers I cited in this paragraph are theoretical.


3. Potent substances whose effects on the body are not fully understood 

Lactose, sodium chloride, aluminum adjuvant (as aluminum salts), Medium 199(as stabilizer including amino acids, mineral salts and vitamins) and water for injection, residual formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, potassium chloride, disodium phosphate, monopotassium phosphate, glycine, and trace amounts of neomycin sulphate and polymyxin B sulphate.
This is the old tactic of using the word chemistry to scare people. As a BSc in chemistry, I can speak in great detail about this. Let's take the most easy three things - sodium chloride, lactose, and water. The old adage of "knowledge alleviates fear" works very well here. If you have ever been present in a kitchen, you have encountered lactose (major sugar in milk), sodium chloride (salt), and water. I hope it is obvious why it is not necessary to be terrified of water, salt, and milk. Your body contains plenty of water and salt, and apart from those people who are lactose intolerant, we generally have a straightforward time digesting milk. Lactose (and sometimes other sugars) are present in certain vaccines to help the contents stay chemically stable until they can get to your body. Lets take the next ones. 

Aluminium salts have been tested very extensively in vaccines, in fact they are our oldest approved vaccine adjuvant. Recall that our vaccinations sometimes do not do very much if given without adjuvant (it depends on the thing being vaccinated against, and this too, was tested). Next, we need not have an intrinsic fear of aluminium, because it is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust. One tactic the antivax ecosystem will attempt to use against you is conflating aluminium metal with aluminium salts - these two act very differently. As an analogy - sodium and chloride as table salt are a necessary ingredient for life. In their pure, non-chemically reacted forms, sodium metal and chlorine gas are highly dangerous items towards the human body. You don't find people getting upset about salt because chlorine is a toxic gas and sodium is a flammable metal. If you could handle (in your hand) the aluminium in its salt form when used in vaccines, in plain form, it would behave something like a sticky honey. The proposed mechanisms of why aluminium adjuvanting works, are not completely worked out in great detail (genuine science does know when to be humble), but it is thought to work by exerting its effect on a special type of immune cell. Other times, vaccine adjuvants are used to allow reduction in dose/ frequency of immunization, and yet other times, they are used to allow cross protection against different types of virus. There is absolutely no link between vaccination aluminium and autism. There is a link between chronic aluminium exposure from long term IV medications in those with kidney disease, but this is not the way healthy children are exposed to aluminium via immunization (chronic exposure versus short term exposure). 

Medium 199's ingredients are listed here - these are all ingredients that live in your food and are naturally present in your arm. 

Formaldehyde in small quantities is present in all living cells as part of one of the essential chemical reactions (citation Lehninger's Biochemistry). It is dangerous in large quantities, which is why industrial workers can and should protect themselves against it, but a pear contains more formaldehyde than all formaldehyde in all the vaccines added together (remember vaccines can't have completely no preservatives, otherwise they would have no shelf life). 

Polysorbate 80 is an oil like substance that helps a vaccine stay mixed (if you ever tried to make your first vinagrette from oil and water, you know how that goes). You eat it all the time in ice cream. Polysorbate 80 absolutely cannot make holes in the blood brain barrier in the quantity present in vaccines (yes it could if you bathed your blood brain barrier in the stuff, but I hope you aren't doing that). 

Potassium chloride, disodium phosphate, monopotassium phosphate, glycine, are things that are present in your body already, naturally - they are special salts and amino acids (that's the glycine). These things are present in vaccines to make sure they are about the same degree of saltiness as your body. You've met neomycin and polymyxin (and their cousins) anytime you ever had to pick up antibiotic ointment for a cut. Again, in antibiotic ointment, these are present in far higher quantities than in all the vaccines added together. So,  no need to fear these items when you can actually know what they are. Antibiotics are in vaccines for their preservative effect, not to treat any infection in the recipient.

What would I say about this chapter in summary? The kind of people who praise this book preach not living in fear and how knowledge will set you free. I encourage the reader of my blog to use these same principles to continue to figure out why the book, Turtles all the way down, is deceptive.