The Covid-19 Vaccines: What don’t we know?
by Enid Futterman June 23, 2021
As a human of a certain age, living in an uncertain age, I am trying to decide whether to line up behind my family, friends and neighbors for a shot. Or two.
To be or not to be vaccinated? That is the first question. Which will break down into other questions as I follow the trail and hope not to fall down a rabbit hole.
The Covid-19 vaccines currently available in the US have all been given Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), which is not the same as approval. The terror and horror of the pandemic is considered justification for skipping animal trials and limiting human trials to two months — not the seven to fifteen years it normally takes for full approval — excluding kids under sixteen, pregnant women, people with allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases, and all but a statistically insignificant percentage of people in any condition over 75.
That leaves a lot of unknowns. But the only questions answered by government and media are when and where you can get it, which for a time meant jumping the line or through hoops, robodialing a perpetually busy phone line, or driving a few hundred miles.
Why is assumed. Why not is never mentioned.
In fact, anything less than over-the-moon positive about the vaccines is labeled misinformation, or worse, disinformation, nowhere to be found on mainstream media, and censored on social media. A Facebook group called COVID19 VACCINE VICTIMS AND FAMILIES, dedicated to the posting of stories about serious injury and death after vaccination, had amassed more than 120,000 members, and was growing at the rate of more than 10,000 per week, before Facebook shut it down on April 26.
Facebook acknowledges blacking out vaccine-related claims it deems false and labels all vaccine posts with a message declaring unequivocally that Covid-19 vaccines are safe.
Twitter does essentially the same. In fact, both Twitter and Facebook were pushed to do so in an April 16 letter from Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) to Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, CEOs of Twitter and Facebook respectively, urging them to censor twelve “superspreaders” of disinformation.
The Disinformation Dozen includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accidental hero to thousands of parents of vaccine-injured children, and Dr. Joseph Mercola, board certified family medicine osteopathic physician, who felt so personally threatened that he deleted all articles concerning Covid, and even Vitamin C, D, and zinc, on his website. Plus ten other credentialed medical professionals who have the largest social media followings and are said to disseminate 65% of misinformation on the web. There are others, who, if not social media stars, are also credentialed and respected.
All of this is justified by a logical sounding argument about risk. Whatever the risk of inoculation might be, now or later or much later, it pales next to the risk of contracting Covid-19. Right?
I don’t know. Maybe. But as time goes by, that argument has been losing its power.
The frenzy to get vaccinated began subsiding in April, when supply began to exceed demand and previously coveted slots started to go begging. Local and state governments are now offering incentives — rides, donuts, and the latest, in New York, a lottery ticket for free tuition at a state or city university and a week of free public transportation. You don’t even need an appointment anymore.
It’s not entirely clear whether or not the upending of supply and demand is related to ‘vaccine hesitation’.
In a YahooNews/YouGov poll taken April 27–29, the number of unvaccinated people in the US who were ready and waiting to get vaccinated (6%) had dwindled, while the numbers of unsure (7%), waiting to see what happens (10%), and will never get vaccinated (20%) had not budged. By June 9th, a NY1 poll in New York City found 12% who would never be vaccinated, and 11% who were unsure. So, the relentless campaign is working, at least to some extent.
In my own community, the decision not to be vaccinated was first made public locally by roughly one-third of frontline workers, i.e., nurses and cops, followed later by 40 school district staff.
None offered specific objections, except for the lack of long-term safety trials, and all weighed in anonymously, for fear, I surmise, not only of being reprimanded or even fired, but of being labeled anti-vax. Which seems to be one of the worst things that can be said about a person right now, right up there with conspiracy theorist.
The counter argument: The vaccines weren’t rushed; they were fast-tracked to not-quite-approval by cutting red tape. Because, if this isn’t an emergency, what is?
This also seems to justify the Excelsior Pass in New York, the first state to offer the euphemistically named ‘vaccine passport’ to prove that the bearer has been vaccinated so s/he can gain entry to, well, society. Proof is required by some colleges, workplaces, airlines, theaters, and hospitals, but at least one Texas hospital, Houston Methodist, and one New Jersey university, Rutgers, are facing opposition lawsuits by employees and students who argue that it is illegal to mandate vaccines that have only Emergency Use Authorization. (Nevertheless, on June 10, 178 staff members at the Houston hospital were suspended for refusing to comply, and on June 13, a judge dismissed their lawsuit and they now face dismissal.)
In May, the NYS Senate Health Committee voted to move a bill to establish a mandatory vaccine registry to the floor. The mandates and the registry, even with the opt-out clause added May 25, are thought by some to be the first step to mandating vaccination for all. Pfizer has already applied for full FDA approval, which would make a mandate legally possible, and given how many states, including New York, now mandate a previously unheard-of number of vaccines for children to attend school, public or private, this is no longer a dystopian fantasy.
In a recent opinion piece in the Albany Times-Union, Kristi Gustafson-Barlette’s concerns were allayed with the power of a word. She was finally convinced by a doctor with ‘Well, science.’ I’ve heard it numerous times in fuller, but still short sentences — ‘I trust science;’ ‘I believe in science’ — as if I believe in witchcraft. The word itself now seems to suffice. But what does the word mean? What science?
Scientists get science wrong all the time, while many brilliant scientists are dismissed, ridiculed, even destroyed for daring to question orthodoxy. For a non-scientist, it can be hard to tell good science from bad.
The deal breaker in the conversation is always some variation on the theme of risk. “Covid is a deadly disease with no cure, and anything is better than nothing.”
Is it? Is the risk of getting Covid-19 greater than the risk of getting the Covid-19 vaccine? And is the benefit of the vaccine worth the risk? And are we sure there is no other, safer way to protect ourselves against it and no cure if we catch it?
Maybe there are no easy answers, but I want to know what is possible to know, and what isn’t. So, let’s unpack it, starting with a law that governs vaccination in this country, and only this country.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) passed in 1986. But it applies to all vaccinations at all ages, and it shields pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines from any and all litigation. If you or your loved one dies or is seriously injured by a vaccine, you can’t sue the company that made it. You have no recourse, and they have no liability.
There is no federal law requiring informed consent before vaccination, and the only information disseminated widely comes from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and they get it from the pharmaceutical companies. When Facebook or Twitter deem vaccine information mis- or disinformation, users are met not only with reassurance, but with a link to WHO for more of the same.
What passes for informed consent is a CDC requirement that a fact sheet be given moments before receiving a vaccine with EUA. For quite a while, the only side effects mentioned on the fact sheet were anaphylaxis — the life-threatening allergic reaction — and the expected short-term symptoms that resemble flu. The “extremely rare” possibility of blood clotting disorders was added recently.
I decided to do this research and write this series to inform myself and anyone else who cares to read it. I’m sorry not to have published a lot sooner; I realize that many if not most of you have already made your decision and acted on it. But many of you also have children young enough to need your consent.
The suppression of information that runs counter to the company line is as undemocratic as voter suppression, and I want our consent, or lack of it, to be informed, as much as I want our votes to be counted.
Next: The Covid-19 Vaccines (Part 2): How do they work?