Antibodies Do NOT Produce Immunity


Antibodies do not produce immunity. 

The immune system consists of at least two parts which are the humoral and the cellular. When one is activated the other is suppressed. Because of this, the new approach has been to try and prevent suppression.


Dr. Rebecca Carly explains:






When a B lymphocyte encounters an antigen, it is stimulated to mature into a plasma cell, which then produces antibodies (also called immunoglobulins, or Ig). Antibodies protect the body by helping other immune cells ingest antigens, by inactivating toxic substances produced by bacteria, and by attacking bacteria and viruses directly. Antibodies also activate the complement system. Antibodies are essential for fighting off certain types of bacterial infections.

Each antibody molecule has two parts. One part varies; it is specialized to attach to a specific antigen. The other part is one of five structures, which determines the antibody’s class-IgG, IgM, IgD, IgE, or IgA. This part is the same within each class.

IgM: This class of antibody is produced when a particular antigen is encountered for the first time. The response triggered by the first encounter with an antigen is called the primary antibody response. Normally, IgM is present in the bloodstream but not in the tissues.

IgG: The most prevalent class of antibody, IgG is produced when a particular antigen is encountered again. This response is called the secondary antibody response. It is faster and results in more antibodies than the primary antibody response. IgG is present in the bloodstream and tissues. It is the only class of antibody that crosses the placenta from mother to fetus. The mother’s IgG protects the fetus and infant until the infant’s immune system can produce its own antibodies.


IgE: These antibodies trigger immediate allergic reactions (see Allergic Reactions: Introduction). IgE binds to basophils (a type of white blood cell) in the bloodstream and mast cells in tissues. When basophils or mast cells with IgE bound to them encounter allergens (antigens that cause allergic reactions), they release substances that cause inflammation and damage surrounding tissues. Thus, IgE is the only class of antibody that often seems to do more harm than good. However, IgE may help defend against certain parasitic infections that are common in some developing countries.

IgD: Small amounts of these antibodies are present in the bloodstream. The function of IgD is not well understood.

An Introduction to Immunity


INNATE IMMUNITY = This can best be described as GENETIC IMMUNITY or that immunity an organism is BORN WITH. This type of immunity can be an immunity that applies to the vast majority of the members of a species (SPECIES IMMUNITY), or it can be an immunity that applies to only a certain subgroup within a species down to a few individuals within that species. For example, cattle suffer from the cowpox virus, but appear to have a SPECIES IMMUNITY to the closely related smallpox viruses, whereas smallpox is a deadly disease to humans , but cowpox is a mild localized skin infection. Humans are susceptible to the HIV virus, but most of our related primates are immune to HIV, but they suffer from HIV-like viruses to which we appear to be immune. Within a species there may exist SUBGROUPS that are STATISTICALLY immune or resistant to particular pathogens. For example, the Northern Europeans appears to be more resistant to tuberculosis than are most Africans, whereas Africans are naturally resistant to a variety of African diseases that readily kill the “whites”. Finally, because of the genetic variation within every species INDIVIDUALS are statistically more resistant to some diseases, and more susceptible to other diseases. Most of you know those within your own families that “rarely” get colds or the flu, while other family members catch one respiratory infection after another. While there are many factors (diet, stress etc.) that could explain these individual differences, one of them is that certain COMBINATIONS OF GENES render some more resistant to the common cold viruses, whereas others of us are very susceptible. This type of immunity has NOTHING TO DO WITH the type of specific immunity we are discussing in this section.

ACQUIRED IMMUNITY = This refers to immunity that one acquires in one of two ways, active or passive. These are subdivided into the following further categories:

a) ACTIVE NATURALLY ACQUIRED IMMUNITY = This occurs when individuals suffer from
    a natural infection of a pathogen and become immune to that pathogen upon recovery (e.g.
b) ACTIVE ARTIFICIALLY ACQUIRED IMMUNITY = This occurs when individuals are
    actively vaccinated with an antigen that confers immunity.

c) PASSIVE NATURALLY ACQUIRED IMMUNITY = This occurs when individuals receive
    antibodies from their mother by a natural process, such as in BREAST MILK or in-utero transfer of
    antibodies from mother to fetus. In mammals, mother’s milk is know to contain a large concentration
    of antibodies and other antiviral and antibacterial substance that protect the newborn infants. Further,
    the mother’s antibodies cross the placental barrier, particularly near the end of term. In both these
    circumstances the infant is only resistant to whatever the mother is resistant to.
d) PASSIVE ARTIFICIALLY ACQUIRED IMMUNITY = This occurs when individuals are
    injected with POOLED serum from immune individuals that contain antibodies against a large number
    of pathogens. In the case of humans, a fraction of blood serum, GAMMA GLOBULIN, that is
    highly enriched in antibodies is injected into individuals that have been exposed to certain pathogens.
    The GAMMA GLOBULIN is obtained from pooled sera from many individuals and thus contains a
    broad spectrum of antibodies.



PASSIVE acquired immunity is short lived as the antibodies eventually die off or are themselves removed from the body as foreign protein. Since the person receiving the passive dose DOES NOT PRODUCE their own antibodies, the immunity is TRANSIENT.

The ACTIVE forms of immunity are generally long lived, particularly in the case of recovery from a CLINICAL INFECTION. Sometimes this immunity it lifelong, but in other cases it is not. Vaccinations may induce long-lived immunity, but recent data indicate that vaccinations may not last as long as once was hoped. For example, there is a very effective vaccine against tetanus, but it lasts only a few years and every year hundreds of people who have been vaccinated against this bacterium die because they have not gotten their BOOSTER SHOTS (vaccinations given periodically to booster the immunity of previous vaccinations) every three to five years.


Vaccines and the immune response to vaccination

  • Live and live-attenuated vaccines Live vaccines contain either low doses or doses of mild forms of the disease organism. Live-attenuated vaccines contain living disease organisms that have been treated in some way to reduce their ability to cause disease while still causing an immune response. Both of these vaccines contain living organisms that are able to infect and multiply in the host and this enhances the strength and duration of the immune response.


  • Killed (or inactivated) vaccines Killed contain high doses of the killed disease organism. Killed vaccines generally result in a weaker and shorter immune response than live vaccines due to their inability to infect and multiply in the host.


  • Sub-unit vaccines These vaccines contain doses of purified antigens extracted from the disease organism.


  • Recombinant vaccines These vaccines are produced by incorporating the DNA for the antigens that stimulate a disease response to a disease organism into a vector (or carrier), such as a harmless virus, which is then used as a live vaccine.


  • DNA vaccines These vaccines contain purified DNA for the antigens that stimulate an immune response to a disease organism.


  • Conjugate vaccines These vaccines are used to elicit an immune response to an antigen that is normally able to evade detection by the immune system. They contain the antigen bound to a compound, such as a protein, to form a complex that is detectable by the immune system.


Antibody titers and immunity: Are they related?


According to Trevor Gunn, B.Sc., “Many measles vaccine efficacy studies relate to their ability to stimulate an antibody response, (sero-conversion or sero-response). An antibody response does not necessarily equate to immunity….the level of antibody needed for effective immunity is different in each individual….immunity can be demonstrated in individuals with a low or no detectable levels of antibody. Similarly in other individuals with higher levels of antibody there may be no immunity. We therefore need to stay clear on the issue: How do we know if the vaccine is effective for a particular individual when we do not know what level of antibody production equals immunity?”

Dr. John March, a developer of animal vaccines, wrote, “Particularly for viral diseases, the ‘cellular’immune response is all important, and antibody levels and protection are totally unconnected.”



Titers: What do they tell us?

A “titer” is a measurement of how much antibody to a certain virus (or other antigen) is circulating in the blood at that moment. Titers are usually expressed in a ratio, which is how many times they could dilute the blood until they couldn’t find antibodies anymore. So let’s say they could dilute it two times only and then they didn’t find anymore, that would be a titer of 1:2. If they could dilute it a thousand times before they couldn’t find any antibody, then that would be a titer of 1:1000.

A titer test does not and cannot measure immunity, because immunity to specific viruses is reliant not on antibodies, but on memory cells, which we have no way to measure. Memory cells are what prompt the immune system to create antibodies and dispatch them to an infection caused by the virus it “remembers.” Memory cells don’t need “reminders” in the form of re-vaccination to keep producing antibodies.

Vaccine Titer Table

This just doesn’t apply to humans but pets as well.


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