Vaccine hesitancy is rational, but you should probably still get it
My number was called as Gov. De Santis, in my home state of Florida, reduced the vaccine eligibility age to 18. I was torn. On one hand, we had just witnessed a historic medical achievement; a vaccine had never gone from discovery to production that fast. On the other hand, a vaccine had never gone from discovery to production that fast.
Questions of its effectiveness in slowing down the virus are taking shape and showing that the vaccine works, as the town of Serrana, Brazil can attest.[1] The CDC also recently updated its guidance allowing vaccinated people to resume full activities like you did before the pandemic. However, the long-term safety of the vaccine is what I ultimately questioned.
Pundits in the mainstream media, public health experts, and the CDC have unequivocally espoused that the benefits outweigh the risks. I respectfully disagree. The correct statement, as American Biologist, Brett Weinstein, suggests in his DarkHorse podcast where he breakdowns the risks associated with the vaccine, is that the benefits probably outweigh the risks. That “probably” is important because it enables deeper conversations around the risks we face with this vaccine. That “probably” also comforts me in believing I made the right decision by getting the vaccine, and you should too.
Why is it that we are so quick to demonize those that have vaccine hesitancy as it pertains to COVID-19? I am not referring to anti-vaxxers but people who are skeptical of this specific inoculation.
I believe vaccine hesitancy stems from the eroding trust in institutions and safety concerns over of the speed of the rollout. Nevertheless, I still think you should get the vaccine because the underlying mRNA technology has a long history of research, is probably safe, and COVID-19 is probably worse.
Erosion of Trust in Institutions
The erosion of trust in American private and public institutions is the most important factor contributing to vaccine hesitancy. We were told that if you deregulate and give companies the ability to police themselves, they will do the right thing. But we know that is not always the case and only seems to get worse as the cozying of business elites and policy makers has created a revolving door between lobbying organizations and the private and public sector.
Take for example, a February 2021 report from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that “underscored the federal government’s persistently lax approach to overseeing the safety of baby food, some experts said, despite clear risks to infants and toddlers. Exposure to heavy metals in particular has been linked to behavioral impairments, brain damage, and even death.”[2] The logical conclusion is that these private companies were unaware of the dangerous levels of toxic metals in their products. However, the study also concluded internal testing by Gerber, Beech-Nut Nutrition Company, Nurture Inc., and Hain Celestial Group, Inc. showed ingredients in certain products contained up to 177 times the lead level, 91 times the inorganic arsenic level, 9 times the cadmium level, and 5 times the mercury level allowed in bottled water, yet the companies still sent them to the shelves.
How are we supposed to trust Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson when they tell us that these vaccines are safe when we have seen the profit motive win out over public health, repeatedly? How are we supposed to trust the regulatory bodies responsible for ensuing public safety when they failed newborn children — literally the most defenseless population of our society?
Historically, that has been the responsibility of the media. Unfortunately, we live in a time where media has been overtaken by the profit motive evidenced by the focus to drive up ratings through polarization and kowtowing to the elites they are supposed to hold accountable. The media ecosystem in the United States is broken. The large cable networks do not challenge the politicians and elites in a consistent manner and increasingly engage in misinformation that’s lazy journalism at best and intentional cover-up activity at worst.
The most obvious example was “The Big Lie” perpetuated by prominent Republican politicians and media pundits on Fox, Newsmax, and One America News claiming the presidential election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. This was after the Trump administration lost 61 lawsuits challenging the results of the election — including those by judges he appointed.[3] Each organization has had to issue formal retractions and Fox is still embroiled in the almost $3B lawsuit. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done and the US experienced an insurrection on January 6, 2021.
This is not a uniquely conservative problem. Centrist and left-leaning organizations like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC news engage in similar, albeit more covert misinformation that benefits Democrats. How can these media outlets cover the Trump-Ukraine impeachment trial 24 hours a day for months but virtually ignore Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian oil company? He had no formal oil and gas experience and received $708K between July 2014 and October 2015 through Rosemont Seneca Bohai Morgan Stanley which received $3.15M from Burisma for “consulting services” that year.[4] A report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs stated that “Hunter Biden and his family’s financial transactions with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals raise criminal concerns and extortion threats.” Networks are consistently more critical of the other side while looking away when it does not benefit their own and that hypocrisy fuels polarization and perpetuates misinformation.[5]
The last example is the most egregious and best illustrates the media’s submission to the most powerful. The Jefferey Epstein story should have been one everyone could rally around. A convicted child predator and sex trafficker and his accomplices should have been people we unanimously wanted to see behind bars. However, Epstein’s accomplices allegedly include the likes of Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz (Harvard professor and OJ’s former lawyer), Wall Street billionaires, and a whole host of elites. In 2008, he served only 18 months for one of two charges for procuring prostitution of a girl below 18 — a crime punishable by up to 15 years in Florida. The US District Attorney at the time, Alexander Acosta, set up the plea deal in secret and later became Trump’s Labor Secretary. He resigned in 2019 when the Miami Herald released evidence revealing he violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.[6] The FBI had intel on Epstein since 2008 but ignored it. He was later charged but committed suicide in a maximum-security prison. Epstein had been abusing and trafficking young women since 2002, only served 18 months in 2008, and continued his ways until he was arrested in 2019.
The real question is how could he continue to do this over and over and not get caught? Videos later surfaced of an ABC news anchor complaining the network “squashed” her interview with one of Epstein’s victims, suggesting that ABC had yielded to threats from powerful forces, including Buckingham Palace.[7] This speaks to why normal people have lost trust in institutions. We have a media that profits through polarization and does not hold elites accountable for their actions. Can we really trust they will not cover up new stories like the Lab Leak Hypothesis, which looks to be overwhelmingly true[8] but generally dismissed as conspiracy because Trump mentioned it? How are normal people supposed to filter information to know what is true? The answer is we can’t, so we don’t. We freeze up and default to the comfort and misinformation of our tribes.
Safety Concerns
The speed of development to deployment of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has raised concerns over safety. I do not focus on the J&J vaccine because I think it’s a distant third and uses traditional vaccine technology. The previous record was mumps in the 1960’s which took about 4 years. This vaccine was rolled out in less than 12 months.[9] Concerns range from absurd to reasonable skepticism. The more absurd including “Bill Gates is trying to implant microchips in everyone” to which I reply, “it’s already been done and it’s in your pocket”. Jokes aside, common concerns include whether the vaccine alters one’s DNA, issues with infertility and unknown long-term effects.
mRNA does not get into the nucleus of a cell which is where your DNA is kept therefore it is extremely unlikely it will alter your DNA.[10] As far as infertility, 23 women became pregnant during the clinical trials but long-term risks aren’t known and that dovetails into the crux of a reasonable safety concern — the long-term risks aren’t known.[11] We’ve never used mRNA at this scale. One concern Brett Weinstein states is the interaction with the immune system. Make no mistake about it, we are taking part in an experiment and it is rational to be a little hesitant.
Why you should still get it
While you might be ready to smash your head in with a hammer, I believe our institutions can be fixed and you should get the vaccine because mRNA’s development for treatment of disease is backed by a long history of research and an inspiring story.
Katalin Kariko, a Hungarian immigrant, should be crowned the mother of mRNA. [12] She has dedicated her life to this type of research even when it rejected her. She started researching mRNA in 1985 but had trouble securing funding by 1995. She was demoted from her position at the University of Pennsylvania and was diagnosed with cancer around that time. She doubted herself but ultimately decided to stick with it when eventually, with the help of former UPenn colleague, Drew Weissman, developed a methodology for using synthetic mRNA to fight disease that involves changing the way the body produces virus-fighting material.
Her research was the basis for the COVID-19 vaccine. The Senior VP of BioNTech said the two deserve a Nobel Prize. Kaiko says she does not care about scientific glory and “will celebrate when this human suffering is over”. She and Dr. Weisman were ceremoniously honored by UPenn when receiving their vaccines. When I learned Kariko got the vaccine, it put my mind at ease since she likely knows more about mRNA than anyone else. I do recognize that she has a personal incentive to want this technology to work as she’s dedicated her life to it. However, her story isn’t consistent with that type of motivation and there’s no Nobel Prize if we all turn into zombies three years from now.
Safety concerns due to the speed of the rollout are fair but not quite accurate. Firstly, we had to do this fast to minimize the impact to global health and economics. Secondly, pharmaceutical companies have been developing mRNA therapies for decades and have leveraged “platforms they have spent years developing to insert the necessary piece of genetic code that is the COVID-19 vaccine”.[13] The best analogy is the development of computers. Once the hardware language, operating systems, and software was developed — it was easy to make software updates and changes. That is basically what the COVID-19 vaccine is — a software update. Could there be bugs?
To test safety and effectiveness, these vaccines were subject to the same clinical trials as any other drugs approved by the FDA and European Union. The key difference being the activation of Emergency Use Authorization which prioritized the development of the COIVD-19 vaccine versus all other medicines currently in the pipeline.
One of the key challenges with mRNA is that it is unstable and often creates an undesirably strong immune response. The clinical trials would have identified those risks. Moreover, the amount of attention paid to vaccines would make it difficult for private and public institutions to engage in fraudulent behavior like deploying a vaccine with short-term safety and/or efficacy risks. In other words, while the FDA failed us on baby food and has been criticized for being increasingly friendly to Big Pharma, it would be risky for Big Pharma to pressure the FDA and for them to succumb to those pressures in such a high-profile scenario.
Finally, the US announced support in lifting patent restrictions which further supports a public health agenda over the profit motive, which I absolutely agree is the right move. Market values of Pfizer and Moderna dropped on the news and I will not shed a single tear for their shareholders because they are going to make plenty of money on this and their other portfolio of drugs. The long history of mRNA research and platforms, the high-profile nature of this rollout, and desire to lift patent restrictions tells me the institutions approving these vaccines are prioritizing public safety and that it is probably safe long-term.
Ultimately, the same logic about the unknown, long-term risks of the vaccine should be applied when considering the alternative — contracting COVID-19. mRNA has been researched for about 35 years while our understanding of this coronavirus is about 18 months. What we do know is that COVID-19 can lead to:
Problems with mood and fatigue
o PTSD, depression, and anxiety due to solitary, long-term stays at the hospital [14]
o “Long-haul” neurological and psychiatric conditions months after being infected [15]
Organ damage [16]
o Images of the heart taken months after recovery have shown lasting damage to the muscle even in people who experienced mild symptoms, which may increase the risk of heart failure or other complications in the future
o Pneumonia associated with COVID-19 can cause tiny air scars in the lungs resulting in long-term breathing problems
o Strokes, seizures, and Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition that causes temporary paralysis, may increase the risk of developing brain issues like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
o Some may experience multisystem inflammatory syndrome where organs and tissues become severely inflamed
Blood clots and blood vessel problems
o Increase likelihood of clots which can cause heart attack and stroke as well affect other parts of the body like lungs, legs, liver, and kidneys
o Weaken blood vessels causing them to leak and thus lasting liver and kidney problems
Fertility issues
o 39% of men recovering COVID patients had reduced sperm count while 61% had increased number of white blood cells in their semen, an indication that sperm function is compromised [17]
o Erectile disfunction due to evidence of damage to blood vessels in the penis [18]
Many of the long-term COVID-19 effects are still unknown but are beginning to take shape and the results are not good. Most deaths have been people with underlying health conditions or the elderly, but it has also been extremely unpredictable when compared to other viruses. It could be that after a few years your body is able to recover 90–95% and the impact is minimal or inconsequential. It is also possible to recover at 50% and lose ten years off your life. My wife and I got COVID-19 while she was pregnant and, while our six-week-old son is healthy, we remain concerned that something unknown could creep up. If you are concerned about the unknown long-term risks of the vaccine, make sure you are weighing it against the long-term risks of contracting the virus itself. In other words, COVID-19 is probably worse.
Beyond self-preservation, we should want to get this vaccine under control so we can get back to normal life. If we allow the vaccine to continue spreading and mutating, the higher the risk the vaccines become ineffective against new variants and we are back to square one. I miss the pre-COVID social relationships, and I am sure you do too. I want my son to feel the warmth and touch of friends and family without having to worry. That, in my opinion, should be the mission.
Conclusion
Vaccine hesitancy is a barrier to herd immunity and a return to normalcy. Those who have it should not be condemned because they did not have time to properly research the history and science behind mRNA. They have a rational fear of the unknown and the institutions meant to develop and regulate vaccines have failed them before. The media tasked with holding these institutions accountable are not applying the same set of principles to elites and “their side”. Not knowing what to believe, we default to our own social groups because it brings us comfort. I had vaccine hesitancy and spent the past two weeks thinking through the elements presented in this article before taking the plunge. I put it to paper in the hopes you will join me.
[1] The Wall Street Journal; A Small Brazilian Town is Beating Covid-19 Through a Unique Experiment
[2] The New York Times; Some Baby Food May Contain Toxic Metals, U.S. Reports
[3] USA Today; By the numbers: President Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the election
[4] CheckYourFact.com; Fact Check: Was Hunter Biden paid as much as $50,000 a month for his work with Burisma?
[5] HSGAC Majority Staff Report; Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption
[6] Wikipedia; Jeffrey Epstein
[7] Vox; Leaked tape: ABC News killed an interview with an accuser of Jeffrey Epstein
[8] The Bulletin; The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan
[9] UCLA Health; The fastest vaccine in history
[10] CDC; Myths and Facts about COVID-19 Vaccines
[11] Icsi.org; Do the mRNA vaccines cause infertility?
[12] The New York Times; Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus
[13] Oligotherapeutics.org; Facts about mRNA Vaccines and the Decades of Research That Went into Creating Them
[14] WebMD; 1 in 3 Have Neurological, Psychiatric Problems Post-COVID
[15] The New York Times; First Covid, Then Psychosis: ‘The Most Terrifying Thing I’ve Ever Experienced’
[16] Mayo Clinic; COVID-19 (coronavirus): Long-term effects
[17] Forbes; Reduction of COVID sperm count
