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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Health & medicine fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about health & medicine. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

13,677 published reviews in this topic

PolitiFactHealth & medicine

A baby’s immune system can’t handle antigens from vaccines, because new food must be introduced slowly to identify allergic reactions.

Publisher’s rating: False

Related reporting—not an original PolitiFact review—addresses the claim’s central assertion about vaccine antigens and babies’ immune systems. It reports that public-health experts say the childhood schedule is designed to protect children when they are vulnerable, and that the immune system can handle more antigens than vaccines contain. Another article describes the concern that a developing immune system might not manage the antigen load from several vaccines, then says scientific evidence contradicts that concern. The excerpts therefore conflict with the claim that a baby’s immune system cannot handle vaccine antigens. They do not, however, examine or substantiate the claim’s comparison with introducing foods slowly to identify allergies. Nor do they describe a PolitiFact investigation or its checking methods, so this evidence supports only a limited account of what related reporting says—not an account of the original fact-check.