What’s Actually In Vaccines? A Doctor Breaks It Down

Dr. Jessica Edwards is a board-certified family medicine physician, the founder of Zahra Medical, and a health policy expert with a strong background in both traditional clinical care and telehealth innovation. As a mother of a child with autism and a health policy fellow, Dr. Edwards combines medical authority, lived experience, and deep empathy—making her a trusted and relatable voice on topics like vaccine safety, public health misinformation, and parent-centered care.

 In this candid, informative clip from The Humanity of Fame, host Kali invites Dr. Jessica Edwards to address a question on the minds of countless parents:
“What would you say to parents who are worried about vaccines but still want to protect their children from preventable diseases?”

What follows is an engaging, science-backed breakdown of exactly what’s in vaccines, why those ingredients are there, and how they help your body build protection without triggering a full-blown illness. Using accessible language and analogies (including a hilarious one involving “Big Shirley from the hood”), Dr. Edwards demystifies ingredients like adjuvants, preservatives, stabilizers, and trace proteins.

She also offers a grounded reminder: while hesitancy is real and valid, the science is sound, and vaccines undergo years of rigorous development and review before reaching the public. Whether you’re a parent with questions or a provider guiding patients through concerns, this segment is essential listening.

Key Takeaways:

• What vaccines actually contain (and what they don’t)
• Why antigens, adjuvants, and preservatives are necessary for effectiveness and safety
• The real deal on formaldehyde, egg protein, and aluminum in trace amounts
• The vaccine approval process: how long it takes, who oversees it, and what has to happen before public use
• How to responsibly use tools like ChatGPT and PubMed to research your concerns—and the importance of talking to your doctor

Guest Contact:
ZahraMedical.com
Follow Dr. Jessica Edwards for more evidence-based healthcare guidance and support for parents navigating autism, chronic care, and health equity.

Let me know if you’d like this adapted for YouTube description, TikTok captioning, or included in a carousel post for Instagram!

Find out more about Kali and the show HERE: https://humanityoffame.com/

Transcript

0:00

When it comes to parents, what would you say to parents who are worried about vaccines but also want to protect their children from preventable diseases? You know, I think in the age of the internet, there is a lot of information about what is actually in vaccines. And I like to take this opportunity to kind of talk through that on a basic science level. I'm not going to talk your head off with a bunch of big terms and stuff, but basically the way that vaccines work is it exposes your body to a weakened part of whatever virus or bacteria it is to get your body to mount an immune response. What a lot of people say is, oh, we might as well just get the sickness and then our body will mount a response. Well, how would you want your body to mount a full-on crazy response when it can mount a small response and then your body's antibodies, they're like big Shirley from the hood. She don't forget that you owe her that $20. She's not going to forget. Your antibodies are not going to forget. And they're your soldiers. They're here to fight for you. They're not going to forget that. So you don't have to pull out your entire army to fight something like the flu. And your body can be exposed to a small amount of it. The strains that were in the last season. And so if you do get the flu, you're not going to be down for five or six days, right? Have the antigen first. Second thing are the adjuvants. So those are things that actually help to boost the immune response to things. And so, you know, some of those are like aluminum salts that can help. It helps the body actually produce stronger responses to the immunity and having the ability to end up, you know, responding better, quicker, faster, et cetera. Now preservatives, a lot of people love to talk about preservatives. Oh my gosh. Preservatives. Let's talk about that. I want to talk to you right now. They prevent contamination. Preservatives. Preservatives, especially in multi-dose vials, because you have some some vaccine. I haven't given a vaccine in a minute, but there are some that have like 10 doses in the vial. And if you're sticking a needle in and out of the same vial, it could get contaminated. And it's not the same needle, but you're sticking a needle in and out of the same vial, different ones, obviously. Yeah. So what's in the air? And so the preservatives keep that external bacteria out of it. Then you've got one or two things. There's stabilizers that helps to keep the temperature stable and it helps keep the vaccine effective under different conditions. And you've got dilutants, which is usually like sterile water. The only vaccine that I would say that has like a residual substance, like a little bit of an egg protein, is the gluten vaccine. Okay. Okay. And I do know that there have been formaldehyde in some viruses, but they're not active ingredients. They're in a very, very small amount that's non-lethal, non-affecting, but it helps to actually inactivate the virus so that it doesn't cause this crazy immune response like you So I would say that for those who are worried about what's actually in the vaccines, I think they are real concerns. Yeah. But at the end of the day, the science has already proven that they're safe. And about the vaccine development process, this is years and years of studies. The FDA, I remember my fellowship program director used to say, the FDA, they don't even have to answer to the president. Well, maybe not the president, but they're like an independent agency. And so they literally like, it takes like seven to 10 years for a new drug to come out. They sell medications and vaccines for years and years. So they're looking at every single ingredient. These companies have to prepare pages and pages of research studies and proposals, and you have to know every single piece that's in these vaccines. And so what I'm saying is, is that while there may be hesitancy for some people, these vaccines have been studied time and time again. PubMed is a free resource, hopefully still around in a few months. That was petty, I'm sorry. But PubMed has so many different research studies. And now in the age of having chat GPT, there's no excuse to not be able to say, chat GPT, please show me what the most common side effects from this vaccine are. What are the long-term risks of these vaccines? It can literally scrub the entire internet and give you an overview of what to expect. Now, if you see something you don't like, talk to your doctor about it, this is- I was just going to say, we want to make sure, and I'm not a doctor, but we want to make sure that we are saying, refer to chat GPT, but then also consult with your doctor about what you find too. Correct.