Adjuvants, Preservatives and Tissue Fixatives in Vaccines

ADJUVANTS, PRESERVATIVES AND TISSUE FIXATIVES IN VACCINES V contain a number of substances which can be divided into the following groups: 1. Micro-organisms, either bacteria or viruses, thought to be causing certain infectious diseases and which the vaccine is supposed to prevent. These are whole-cell proteins or just the broken-cell protein envelopes, and are called antigens. 2. Chemical substances which are supposed to enhance the immune response to the vaccine, called adjuvants. 3. Chemical substances which act as preservatives and tissue fixatives, which are supposed to halt any further chemical reactions and putrefaction (decomposition or multiplication) of the live or attenuated (or killed) biological constituents of the vaccine. All these constituents of vaccines are toxic, and their toxicity may vary, as a rule, from one batch of vaccine to another. In this article, the first of a two-part series, we shall deal with adjuvants, their expected role and the reactions (side effects).