Guest writer response to “Should I get the COVID vaccine?” by Kathryn Mayers
By Lawrence Zhou, graduate student in Communication and Journalism department
I’m getting tired of masking. I’m getting tired of online classes. I’m getting tired of my airline miles wasting away, unused. I’m getting tired of my phone thinking I’m dead because I never leave my house. But it is precisely because the pandemic fatigue sucks that you should get vaccinated. The quickest way out of this pandemic is vaccinations. Israel has engaged in one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world and they are quickly returning to life as normal. It should be embarrassing to us as Americans that China, where this all started, somehow (safely) opened back up before us. I’d like to join the rest of the world in opening up.
There are legitimate reasons not to get the COVID-19 vaccine, including people who experience severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis) to any component of the COVID-19 vaccine. However, for almost everyone else who is approved to get a COVID-19 vaccine, you should get vaccinated. Don’t take my word for it – I’m just a grad student with no medical background. Instead, take the word of public health experts who are following the scientific evidence on vaccines in a non-partisan way.
Let’s start with the most important issue: vaccines work. We know from real world trials they work, with even those at the highest risk like health care personnel well protected against COVID-19 after vaccination. We know they cut infection and hospitalization. We know the Pfizer vaccine is over 95% effective at protecting against infection and death from evidence in Israel. We know that every vaccine, from AstraZeneca to Moderna to Johnson & Johnson, is very effective. We know they work against variants such as the B.1.351 and B.1.1.7 variants. You can even see how they work in this excellent New York Times interactive which shows how each vaccine works. And even if some people still get COVID-19 after getting vaccinated, that remains a very small percentage of people and the symptoms are likely to be less severe. This is not just the recommendations of “big pharma” – physicians all across the country are overwhelmingly in agreement that the vaccines work and are safe. The consensus from immunologists, virologists, medical doctors, researchers, public health experts is clear – getting vaccinated helps you and everyone else around you. Even young people should get vaccinated!
And we should want the vaccines to work. A chilling New York Times headline from early May read “Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe.” This is partly because vaccinations are slowing down nationally. This is a problem – slowdown in vaccines could affect our ability to get the virus under control as variants spread. The more people that get vaccinated, the quicker we can return to something that resembles normal. The longer we allow variants to spread, the more that we can expect sporadic lockdowns and public health measures that infringe on our liberty and impair a return to a pre-COVID life.
Not only are vaccines effective, but they are remarkably safe. Despite the fact that the vaccines were fast-tracked, they still had to meet stringent safety standards, making them as safe as any other vaccine or medication on the market, if not safer. There is no evidence that the vaccines have caused any deaths, even after millions of Americans have been vaccinated. Though the vaccines can produce some unpleasant side-effects, they are not life threatening. While there has been an uptick of claims of safety concerns with the vaccines, there has not been a corresponding uptick in any evidence to substantiate those claims.
Finally, even assuming the worst possible case, where vaccines were responsible for a series of very serious side-effects, the expected risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 is far worse. COVID-19 causes a wide-range of symptoms, from none at all to death. COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, more than World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined, leading to situations where mortuaries are literally unable to store all the dead bodies of COVID-19 patients. Those who develop serious symptoms can require hospitalization, overwhelming hospitals and leading to tragic videos like this one where doctors are just watching people die in emergency rooms.
Let’s assume that vaccines were dangerous and that they somehow bypassed both government and independent safety tests not just in the US but around the world, and assume that the vaccines caused serious side-effects. How are they worse than COVID-19?
Recently, the Branding Iron published an article entitled “Should I get the COVID vaccine?” While the article raises important questions that need to be answered, the article does not provide answers that are backed with rigorous science and studies. In fact, it only provides links to three sources: the FDA website, information about HIPPA, and the Six Degrees of Separation Theory. None of these are academic, scholarly, or scientific articles about the efficacy or downsides of COVID-19 vaccines. When it comes to contradicting established medical and scientific consensus, not just in the US but also around the world, the bare minimum expectation is that the author at least cite some research from actual scientists and public health experts, even if it is only to give the pro-vaccination case fair representation before critiquing it. Of course, just because a scientists or doctor hasn’t raised the concerns the author is addressing doesn’t mean that they aren’t real concerns – they are legitimate reasons to distrust medical experts – but it does mean that it should raise some skepticism about the seriousness of these concerns. Raising questions is important – doing academic research in a good faith attempt to find the answers is just as important. “Doing research” can’t refer just to finding sources that support your viewpoint – it means doing a thorough investigation of the expert literature on an issue and critically interrogating both sides of an issue.
It is also a little unclear what the author is really arguing against – incentives for vaccinations or mandatory vaccinations. Since I am personally unsure which approach is superior (I could see a reasonable case against mandatory vaccinations but in favor of strong incentives for vaccination and vice versa), I will not make strong claims about what university policy is or should be. I only aim to reply to the author’s claims and to suggest that you, the reader, should get vaccinated.
Why aren’t the vaccines FDA approved?
Let’s start with the first claim – that the FDA has not approved the vaccines. The author is correct that none of current COVID-19 vaccines have been “approved” by the FDA, although Pfizer and its vaccine partner BioNTech have started the application to request full FDA approval. While there is a distinction between “approval” and “authorization,” it is not one that should raise any alarms. Approval is a process that requires months as it requires rigorous reviews of all available data. Authorization refers to granting an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) during unusually urgent times like a pandemic where the costs of waiting months for full approval during a crisis outweigh the risks of deploying a product for the purposes of public health.
But the expedited process of granting an EUA doesn’t mean that the FDA isn’t carefully scrutinizing data and making calculated judgments about the risks involving the vaccines. The FDA reviewers still had to review all currently available data from clinical trials before granting the EUA. In fact, much of the data used to make the decision for each vaccine is available on the FDA website, which you can read for yourself. The vaccines still needed to meet the FDA’s rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality in order to qualify for emergency use authorization.
So, why are the COVID-19 vaccines not approved? Because time pressures of the pandemic necessitated quick deployment. The FDA decided that the risks of deploying the vaccine were minimal. For example, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine passed the FDA’s requirements by being well over 90% effective at preventing serious cases of COVID, which is more than enough to meet the requirements for vaccine efficacy for approval, but the FDA granted EUA because of the pandemic.
But don’t worry – the process of obtaining an EUA still requires multiple rounds of clinical trials. The Pfizer vaccine had to go through three phases of trials in order to be granted EUA. If you’re interested in learning more about this, there is an excellent Los Angeles Times piece that explains this in depth.
Were the vaccines rushed?
The next claim the author makes is that the vaccines were rushed, created in less than a year. This can be worrying to some. After all, as the author notes, vaccines usually take 10-15 years for full approval.
However, it is important to note that “fast” does not mean “dangerous.” Clinical trials already have demonstrated the safety of the vaccines and real world examples in the United Kingdom and Israel have already shown that the vaccines work and are safe. After all, millions of Americans have already taken the vaccine without serious side effects. But perhaps there is some legitimate suspicion about the numbers and the short timeframe. Here’s why the vaccine was developed so quickly and why you shouldn’t be worried.
Here’s the general process for vaccine development and approval. First, researchers need to study the structure and behavior of a pathogen, including sequencing it. Then, they need to figure out howfigure how to get the human body to produce an effective immune response against it. After that, they need to produce the vaccine and test the vaccine for safety and efficacy on cells, starting with cell, animal, and mathematical models, before conducting a series of trails on humans. Finally, companies can apply for federal approval. That’s a timescale of years. So, how did they get that time to just a couple of months?
First, a lot of that 10-15 year timeline is pure bureaucracy. President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed helped with that. It helped offset the cost of the development of the vaccines and mobilized the vaccines quickly by compressing the timeframe for vaccine authorization by combining clinical trial phases (usually clinical trials are conducted in sequence, one after the other, but they were overlapped for the COVID-19 vaccines). By November, nearly $11 billion was being awarded to seven companies for vaccine development. One of the key barriers to vaccine development has been cost, but with a massive influx of cash from both private and public sources across the globe, coupled with high demand and urgency, companies were able to accelerate development.
Second, the vaccine is a medical miracle. Just after a month after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, vaccines were already being developed. This is due in part to the rapid sequencing of the COVID-19 genome which was publicly released early on during the pandemic and allowed rapid research of the vaccines. This was all helped by the fact that there was strong public will for developing the vaccines and the money to back it up.
COVID-19 is also a form of a “coronavirus” and researchers already had done much research on similar coronaviruses like SARS and MERS. Those researchers were also collaborating heavily with researchers around the world. The vaccine also used mRNA and adenovirus technologies, technologies that have been in the works for years now, although this is the first time they have been used outside of human clinical trials. Conventional vaccines contain viral proteins or disabled forms of the virus itself, which stimulate the body’s immune system. While usually effective, these methods take lots of time. mRNA technologies are different – they use a string of mRNA inside a lipid coat which encodes a key protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which acts as the antigen and triggers an immune system. This research has been ongoing for more than two decades.
What about the J&J vaccine pause?
The author then mentions the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause. Not only did the FDA and CDC lift their recommended pause after a thorough safety review, they have gone back to proactively recommending it. Of course, we should be very cognizant of risks with medication, but all medication carries risk. For example, you’re more likely to get a blood clot from birth-control than from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. While the types of blood clots are different, the point is that risk is minimal and the benefits of immunization from COVID-19 far outweigh. For context, there were only eight reported cases of blood clots out of over 7 million vaccines. There is actually a higher risk of developing blood clots from COVID-19 itself, with preliminary research suggesting that there is a “many-fold higher” chance of developing a blood clot from COVID-19 than any of the vaccines. If anything, the pause demonstrated that the FDA and CDC are acting out of an abundance of caution, suggesting that vaccines are overall very safe.
Are there religious concerns with vaccinations?
Next, the author talks about religious objections to vaccinations. These are real. In fact, there is a huge debate right now about religious exemptions to vaccinations. This debate is not easily settled – there are legitimate arguments on both sides. In a society with a strong emphasis on individual freedom, particularly the freedom to religious expression, we should be very cautious about actions that genuinely impose undue hardship on someone’s sincerely held religious beliefs. It’s an issue that invites genuine debate and controversy, with Americans divided on whether religious reasons are sufficient grounds for rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine. So, I will not take a stance on this debate because I don’t know the answer to this hotly contested debate.
However, the author asserts that the vaccines are made from aborted fetal cells without citing any evidence. This is patently false. While fetal cell lines were used to make the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, those are not the same as fetal tissue – fetal cell lines are grown in a laboratory and do not contain any tissue from a fetus. And none of the other vaccines, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines used fetal cell lines, so those with religious objections to this practice can simply choose a different vaccine. This has led the Vatican to issue a statement that it was “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive any COVID-19 vaccine.
Are there side effects?
The author then asserts that there are “proven side effects,” again without citing any evidence of this. We know that vaccines, in general, are both safe and effective, responsible for all but eliminating diseases like polio, tetanus, and rubella. And vaccines have totally eradicated diseases like smallpox and rinderpest. Vaccines have been a huge part of the general public health effort over the last 200 years that has literally doubled our life expectancy. Scientific study after scientific study has confirmed that vaccines are remarkably safe and do not cause major side effects like autism. A litany of things, including COVID-19 itself, are far more deadly and dangerous than even the worst-case scenario of vaccine side-effects. And I already cited a lot of specific evidence earlier, but the COVID-19 vaccine specifically is remarkably safe, so even if there was reason to be hesitant about vaccinations in general (there isn’t), it wouldn’t be sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the COVID-19 vaccines specifically were unsafe.
Let’s talk about the specific things the author mentions. I assume the reference to speech delays is about the MMR vaccine. Overwhelming medical evidence shows that the MMR vaccine is both and effective, able to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella in children, all serious and deadly diseases, with very few side effects. There is no medical evidence that vaccines cause allergic or autoimmune diseases. While some previous research suggested some weak link between vaccines and asthma, subsequent studies that were much larger cannot find any such association. And some very early research did suggest some concerns related to thimerosal and ADHD, but three large follow up studies debunked the relationship. Finally, the author mentions the MTHFR mutation, but the gene is not linked to vaccine responses. The studies this claim is based on are remarkably weak, reflecting outdated genetics research, using very small sample sizes, and covering only smallpox vaccines which are no longer used.
What is the purpose of a university?
I agree with the author that a university is designed to educate, but it’s a little difficult to facilitate that mission if classes have to remain online or if there is an outbreak on campus. It should also require students to do real research and critical thinking, drawing upon academic research to inform claims and all of the research points to COVID-19 vaccines being safe and effective.
Now is a university supposed to make decisions for students? The libertarian in me does find something worrying about expanding university power over citizens, but the COVID-19 vaccine would not be a unique infringement on liberty of student choice. Legal precedence already allows mandatory vaccinations for things like rubella and chickenpox. The University of Wyoming already has a MMR immunization requirement. If anything, trust runs in the other direction – another year of online instruction and widespread outbreaks of the disease will also cause students and parents alike to lose trust in an institution designed to facilitate student flourishing.
Isn’t this a slippery slope?
Is there a slippery slope concern? Sure. We should scrutinize every action taken by the university and be willing to push back over unjustified exercises of power. But once you accept that public health could ever be a legitimate reason for restricting some forms of behavior, then the question isn’t whether the university can impose requirements on student conduct, but when, and if there was ever a time, it would be during a global pandemic that we have declared a public health emergency.
What about HIPPA?
The HIPPA concerns are real and there is some debate about them in the context of so-called vaccine passports, but given that universities can already mandate vaccinations and many places can require disclosure of vaccination information, it would not violate HIPPA.
Isn’t it my choice?
The author then suggests it’s your choice. That is true, but we all recognize limitations on our choices all the time. Your freedom ends where mine begins. And all I’m suggesting is that you, the reader, should get the COVID-19 vaccine. The author strangely makes a strained analogy to wars where many Americans died. This seems oddly flippant of a pandemic that has killed more people in the US alone than live in the entire state of Wyoming. And they seem oddly flippant of some of the greatest tragedies in recent American history. Each and every soldier that died in those wars was a brave warrior for our country that did not need to die. There is a reason why lawmakers are calling on making vaccinations mandatory for the military and why veteran’s advocacy groups are encouraging vaccinations – the threat of COVID-19 is real and each person who dies from it is another needless death. It seems odd that the price of freedom for us is the death of others. If you can take a (small) risk upon yourself to help save even one life, that seems the best course of action you can take. I think Pope Francis got it right when he said that getting vaccinated is “an ethical choice, because you are playing with health, life, but you are also playing with the lives of others. I’ve signed up. One must do it.”
Is COVID-19 that serious?
Finally, the author attempts to downplay the impact of COVID-19. Ignoring the fact that the author seems to flippantly disregard over 3 million deaths, there are selfish reasons for caring about the pandemic. It’s a national security emergency that has crushed the economy, increased inequality gaps, devastated military readiness, allowed China to expand its global influence, hurt the environment, hurt rural households across America, reversed decades of progress on combating global poverty, collapsed public health infrastructure, added to excess mortality, among many other harms. Sure, us younger students probably don’t know that many people that have died of COVID-19, but given that COVID-19 primarily affects older individuals, that is not a surprising finding. Zooming out at the bigger picture gives a much bleaker outlook unless we get this pandemic under control so we can return to normal. Ask yourself why every public health expert takes this pandemic so seriously. Is it, perhaps, that the experts know something that we don’t?
It is important to raise questions and critically assess information presented to us. But it is just as important to make sure we’ve done our due diligence and research on issues that most of us lack the expertise or experience to understand. I empathize with the author’s worries about the safety about vaccines – anyone concerned about their health and wellbeing should be willing to ask tough questions – but when the preponderance of evidence suggests that vaccines are safe and the questions raised have been answered by countless studies and papers written by scientists and researchers, we should probably listen to what they have to say.
Do your research! And the research says go get vaccinated! Not just for you, but for everyone around you.
