Because of all the writing I do, I subscribe to a diverse group of news sites: liberal, progressive, conservative, libertarian, religious, conservative Christian. I was curious when I received an e-mail from a conservative Christian ministry with the subject line of “A Word about Covid Vaccines.” The word turned out to be over 6,000 words, much of them in defense of the Covid vaccine.
Although the author says that he considers the vaccine issue to be a personal choice, and is not advising anyone to get the vaccine or not to get it, he wants to push back against the anti-Covid vaccine frenzy. He doesn’t believe the vaccine is dangerous, and says he has taken one of the vaccines to facilitate international travel without quarantine.
The author is known as a researcher, as am I. He claims to have received probably hundreds of links to anti-Covid vaccine material, and to have looked at a lot of them, tested them as best as he could, prayed about it, and discussed it with many brethren, as have I. He laments that the Covid vaccine issue has divided churches, as do I.
But our conclusions are totally different.
The author makes three main arguments in defense of the Covid vaccine, all of them quite lame.
1. I don’t personally know anyone who has died or suffered permanent injury from the vaccine.
The author is in contact with a lot of people around the world, knows people that have died of Covid, and knows a lot of people who have been vaccinated, but doesn’t know of anyone who has died, suffered permanent injury, or has had a problem with the vaccine. The implication, of course, is that these things haven’t happened.
This first argument is the most laughable. I don’t know of anyone who has ever been raped, but this doesn’t mean that no one has ever been raped. I don’t know of anyone who has ever been murdered, but this doesn’t mean that no one has ever been murdered. I don’t know of anyone who has ever been molested as a child, but this doesn’t mean that no one has ever been molested as a child. I don’t know of anyone who has ever had his house burn down, but this doesn’t mean that no one has ever had his house burn down. I don’t know of anyone who has ever been bitten by a shark, but this doesn’t mean that no one has ever been bitten by a shark.
2. The VAERS is not a dependable database.
The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is “a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems in U.S.-licensed vaccines.” It is not “operated” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) like the author says, but is “co-managed” by the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The author doesn’t believe that the VAERS is a dependable database by which to judge the lethality of vaccines. He rejects the claim that thousands have died from the vaccines as reported by the VAERS. He believes that the VAERS is not accurate because anyone can report events to VAERS, and its information is unverified.
According to the latest report on VAERS data that I have seen, there were “a total of 595,622 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 13,068 deaths and 81,050 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020 and Aug. 13, 2021.” Excluding “foreign reports”:
464,769 adverse events, including 6,018 deaths and 37,806 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. Of the 6,018 U.S. deaths reported as of Aug. 13, 13% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 19% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 33% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
So I suppose that tens of thousands of “anti-vaxers” just spend all day sitting in their parent’s basement making up deaths and injuries and reporting them to the VAERS?
First of all, if the VAERS is so unreliable, then why does the CDC and the FDA rely on it? From About VAERS:
VAERS accepts and analyzes reports of adverse events (possible side effects) after a person has received a vaccination.
VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences to CDC and FDA. VAERS is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused a health problem, but is especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that might indicate a possible safety problem with a vaccine. This way, VAERS can provide CDC and FDA with valuable information that additional work and evaluation is necessary to further assess a possible safety concern.
If the VAERS is so unreliable, then why does the CDC and FDA accept and analyze what is reported? Why is the VAERS especially useful? And how can the VAERS provide valuable information?
Second, does the author know the laws relating to the VAERS? According to “Report an Adverse Event to VAERS”:
Healthcare providers are required by law to report to VAERS:
- Any adverse event listed in the VAERS Table of Reportable Events Following Vaccination that occurs within the specified time period after vaccinations
- An adverse event listed by the vaccine manufacturer as a contraindication to further doses of the vaccine
Healthcare providers are strongly encouraged to report to VAERS:
- Any adverse event that occurs after the administration of a vaccine licensed in the United States, whether it is or is not clear that a vaccine caused the adverse event
- Vaccine administration errors
Vaccine manufacturers are required to report to VAERS all adverse events that come to their attention.
Knowingly filing a false VAERS report is a violation of Federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1001) punishable by fine and imprisonment.
Does he even realize what is involved in filing a VAERS report? Again, according to “Report an Adverse Event to VAERS”:
What will I need to fill out the report?
- Patient information (age, date of birth, sex)
- Vaccine information (brand name, dosage)
- Date, time, and location administered
- Date and time when adverse event(s) started
- Symptoms and outcome of the adverse event(s)
- Medical tests and laboratory results (if applicable)
- Physician’s contact information (if applicable)
It is also common knowledge that the adverse reactions to vaccines are way underreported.
And third, the author never mentions the EudraVigilance website of the European Union’s European Medicines Agency (EMA) that also tracks reports of deaths and injuries due to the Covid vaccine. These reports “are submitted electronically to EudraVigilance by national medicines regulatory authorities and by pharmaceutical companies that hold marketing authorisations (licences) for the medicines.” I guess the thousands of deaths and over a million adverse reactions to the Covid vaccine in Europe are all made up as well.
3. The CDC is trustworthy.
Although the author acknowledges that the CDC is fallible, has been given, at times, to politics, he not only doesn’t distrust everything the CDC says, but believes that the CDC is generally more trustworthy than the anti-vaxer voices.
This is the same CDC that thinks we need more sex education in schools and wastes taxpayer dollars on transgender beauty pageants, safe-sex events featuring a sex-video star, and pushing gun control. Even the New York Times has admitted that the CDC may be broken beyond repair:
The C.D.C. maintains more than 100 separate disease-specific computer systems (a byproduct of the agency’s funding silos), and many of those can’t interface with one another.
Crucial data is often shepherded from health care facilities to health departments through a tortured process that can involve handwritten notes, manual spreadsheets, fax machines and snail mail.
It’s not uncommon for basic information like race, ethnicity, age or address to be missing from clinical reports,” Interlandi writes. “It’s also not uncommon for those reports to languish at the state or local level without ever making their way to federal officials. Even the most serious diseases, which are supposed to be logged within 24 hours of detection and reported to the C.D.C. in a timely way, are not necessarily sent up that chain in any systematic manner.”
Filings show that “all but five political donations from CDC employees since 2015 have gone to Democrats.”
In spite of his impressive research credentials, the author can’t separate conspiracy theory from conspiracy fact. He also believes it is a fact that millions have died from Covid. Millions may have died with Covid, but not from Covid. This is irrefutable. Even the trustworthy CDC said last year that about 90 percent of people hospitalized for Covid had one or more underlying conditions, including hypertension (49.7%), obesity (48.3%), chronic lung disease (34.6%), diabetes mellitus (28.3%), and cardiovascular disease (27.8%).
