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President Trump is quoted in the UK newspaper The Independent as saying:

I mean, for a little baby to be injected with that much fluid, even beyond the actual ingredients, they have sometimes 80 different vaccines in them. It’s crazy.

I know the MMR injection combines three different vaccines, but I have never heard of an injection that combines eighty different vaccines. Is there such a vaccine? Or maybe it's a misunderstanding e.g. a single vaccine is effective against eighty different strains of a pathogen?

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    On a different note, there's a slight ambiguity of what "they" refers to in the quote, because Trump isn't always very careful in his use of language. The question interprets it as meaning "[one of] the injections", but I think it could also be taken as "[one of] the babies" - i.e. that a baby is injected with 80 vaccines in quick succession, such that they have them all "in them" at once. Commented Sep 23 at 11:59
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    This is not an answer, but here is something that may be worth noting: the context of the claim does not exactly match the claim itself, so it is possible that Mr. Trump mistakenly used a wrong word, be it by accident or on purpose. The phrase here in this quote above "beyond the actual ingredients" makes me think that the claim was intended to be about some passive ingredients. Also, in the original article, there is another quote: "[Vaccines] can be great, but when you put the wrong stuff in them <...>", which again hints that the intended focus could be on some inactive ingredients. Commented Sep 23 at 21:05
  • "but I have never heard of an injection that combines eighty different vaccines" — the quote doesn't appear to claim this. My initial reaction was "this must be about the total number of vaccinations". Commented Sep 24 at 17:08
  • From the previous phrases, I think the president's might have been trying to say something along the lines of: "even beyond the actual [vaccine?/active agent?], they sometimes have 80 different [chemicals?/inert ingredients?] in them. It's crazy." He very often goes off on tangents mid-stream and rephrases things as he goes. Commented Sep 24 at 17:41

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I was unable to locate any injections containing 80 different vaccines, so no.

CDC list combination vaccinations, which none come to even close to "80", the highest on this list being 4 and the highest international being 6

Instead the claim might be referencing to total number of vaccinations administered to adolescence.

CDC vaccination schedule for adolescence as well as more human readable list list the vaccines and their suggested administration ages. The total number varies depending on the amount accepted, but assuming full compliance the "80" isn't absurd.

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    Could you include some salient points from the linked sources, so the answer stands alone better if users don't want to or can't click through? For the first link, perhaps list the examples with the largest combinations. For the last paragraph, what does "the amount accepted" mean - maybe you can give some examples of why it's hard to put a precise figure on it? How big a range of counts are we talking about? Is 80 near the lower bound or upper bound of that range? Commented Sep 23 at 13:45
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    For all the reasons that link-only answers are discouraged throughout the Stack Exchange network. Commented Sep 23 at 15:57
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    Most importantly, I don't think we trust that any pages operated by the current CDC will continue to exist in the near future, particularly those relating to vaccines. Commented Sep 23 at 16:43
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    @Barmar No, I think the intent is "[from infancy] to adolescence" Commented Sep 24 at 15:06
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    I downloaded the lists, put them in a spreadsheet, then removed duplicates. The result makes the claim of "80" look absurd, even if one assumed full compliance to skew the result to be as high as possible (however, a quick internet search indicates that is not a reasonable assumption). How did you conclude otherwise? Commented Sep 26 at 3:59
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In a strict sense, yes. Perhaps not exactly 80 but you could get close in a single administration of multiple high-valency vaccines.

Vaccines are designed to show your immune system pieces of things it needs to recognize and kill (called antigens). This allows your adaptive immune system to patiently work out antibody or receptor design (which can take between 5 and 20 days) without an active infection that is trying to kill you. This is generally considered desirable, as your innate immune system response is not as efficient. It's all the illness symptoms that you usually won't enjoy, and it fails relatively often; if the adaptive immune system takes too long and the innate immune system fails, this results in death.

Some vaccines have many different antigen pieces inside, from different viral lineages, because then your immune system gets to see lots of different things that it needs to kill. This is called valency. The standard flu vaccine used to be quadrivalent; it had pieces from four different flu viruses (two influenza A and two influenza Bs). Now it's trivalent, one of the influenza B strains got so beaten down by COVID restrictions that it's in danger of extinction (we briefly thought it was extinct but it's desperately hanging on), so we removed it from the standard vaccine. Other common vaccines (like the Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine) have even more different antigens. The PCV21 vaccine has 21 antigens.

Because these are separate antigens, you could administer them separately if you really wanted. The limitation would be administrative - the combined, high-valency vaccine is trialed and approved as a unit, and you would have to redo trials. This separability is distinct from an antigenic epitope, which is the specific part of an antigen that the immune system locks onto. Separating epitopes of an antigen into different shots is a much more difficult technical task, and you would expect that this technical work would yield candidates that fail as vaccines at a high rate. Saying that there are thousands or millions of vaccines in a shot because an antigen has many possible epitopes would not be correct.

Because these are separate antigens which could be reasonably easily delivered in separate shots, you could call this 21 vaccines in one shot. I wouldn't, but I wouldn't call it wrong, either. If my pediatrician described PCV21 as "21 vaccines put together to maximize protection" I would not object to that. If my pediatrician described high-valency vaccines as "just one burger with 10 choices of topping" or "one game with ten different modes or options" I would not find that acceptable (I'd probably get a new pediatrician; those analogies are entirely incorrect).

The implication of this claim is that these types of vaccine are bad. That there is a negative associated with combining many antigens into one shot. This is untrue; approved high-valency vaccines are trialed for safety and provide protection against a broader range of pathogens.

Your immune system is fighting far more than 80 things at a time to keep you alive. A large number of antigens in a single shot is not any more risky than fewer antigens, provided the combined shot has been trialed for safety and is carefully followed in post-approval surveillance (as all vaccines in the US are).

Providing broad coverage is a desirable attribute, and it is very reasonable that there are even higher valency vaccines in some stage of development or testing (the highest valency vaccine that I am aware of that has been approved is PCV23). A successful high-valency vaccine with 80 antigens that conferred broad protection against an entire bacterial or viral clade would be extremely beneficial, not a cause for concern.

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    The distinction between, "you are receiving 1 Vaxelis vaccine," "you are receiving 4 vaccines (DTaP + IPV +Hib +HepB) in one shot" and "you are receiving 80 vaccines (80 antigens) is somewhat arbitrary. However, the norm is to divide vaccines by which disease they prevent, a given vaccine has more than one antigen for the same disease. Commented Sep 23 at 16:12
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    I am confused why you say "in a strict sense, yes" but then immediately turn to look at the constituents of the vaccines. The claim is for the vaccines, not antigens. If anything, your answer seems to support "in a strict sense, no" and only "in a loose sense, yes". Commented Sep 23 at 16:54
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    A bit like a restaurant advertising that they have 1000 different dishes on the menu, when it's really just one burger with 10 choices of topping. I guess it's technically correct, but it's a generous reading of the word "different" to include minor variations of a common entity, and is only stated that way for effect. PCV21 seems to be widely referred to as "a 21-valent vaccine" in medical and brand literature, rather than as "21 vaccines" - it might not be wrong, but it does not seem to be how professionals in the relevant field would generally refer to it. Commented Sep 23 at 17:51
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    "you could call this 21 vaccines in one shot. I wouldn't, but I wouldn't call it wrong, either." I would call it wrong. It's misleading because it gives the false impression that a single shot covers more diseases/conditions than it does. IMO, statements can be "technically correct" (or ambiguous) and still be lies because they intend to deceive. Commented Sep 23 at 17:57
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    Even if you go with the interpretation that the PCV21 does contain 21 vaccines you have not shown 80. You have one example of 3/4 for flu and for 21. Maybe there are others that have 80 different strains but you haven't shown any. Commented Sep 24 at 4:59

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