It is so clear now that a limited approach to only vaccinating the highest risk patients would have been more prudent. With half of the US population vaccinated, we have witnessed unprecedented injury and death among the Americans who volunteered for one of three novel genetically engineered vaccines.
Many groups are calling for an absolute prohibition of vaccination in those under age 30, while others are calling for removal from the market altogether. The good news is that Novavax will have an antigen-based vaccine that appears to be as effective as Pfizer and Moderna, but much safer without the genetic technology that was simply not ready for prime time.
Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo and Dr. Harvey A. Risch break through to the American public on the lack of safety and concerning developments in the ill-fated COVID-19 mass vaccination program with their recent commentary in The Wall Street Journal on June 22, 2021. Here are some excerpts from this must-read article below. Find the full article here, “Are Covid Vaccines Riskier Than Advertised?.”
One remarkable aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic has been how often unpopular scientific ideas, from the lab-leak theory to the efficacy of masks, were initially dismissed, even ridiculed, only to resurface later in mainstream thinking. Differences of opinion have sometimes been rooted in disagreement over the underlying science. But the more common motivation has been political.
Another reversal in thinking may be imminent. Some scientists have raised concerns that the safety risks of Covid-19 vaccines have been underestimated. But the politics of vaccination has relegated their concerns to the outskirts of scientific thinking—for now.
The Vaers data for Covid-19 vaccines show an interesting pattern. Among the 310 million Covid-19 vaccines given, several adverse events are reported at high rates in the days immediately after vaccination, and then fall precipitously afterward. Some of these adverse events might have occurred anyway. The pattern may be partly attributable to the tendency to report more events that happen soon after vaccination.
The implication is that the risks of a Covid-19 vaccine may outweigh the benefits for certain low-risk populations, such as children, young adults and people who have recovered from Covid-19. This is especially true in regions with low levels of community spread, since the likelihood of illness depends on exposure risk.
And while you would never know it from listening to public-health officials, not a single published study has demonstrated that patients with a prior infection benefit from Covid-19 vaccination. That this isn’t readily acknowledged by the CDC or Anthony Fauci is an indication of how deeply entangled pandemic politics is in science.
The battle to recover scientific honesty will be an uphill one in the U.S. Anti-Trump politics in the spring of 2020 mushroomed into social-media censorship. News reporting often lacked intellectual curiosity about the appropriateness of public-health guidelines—or why a vocal minority of scientists strongly disagreed with prevailing opinions. Scientists have advocated for or against Covid-19 therapies while having financial relationships with product manufacturers and their foundation benefactors.
Public-health authorities are making a mistake and risking the public’s trust by not being forthcoming about the possibility of harm from certain vaccine side effects. There will be lasting consequences from mingling political partisanship and science during the management of a public-health crisis.
Dr. Ladapo is an associate professor of medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Risch is a professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health.