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MAY 7, 2021
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To take or not to take. The vaccine, that is. That is information. Specifically, snags with the one-dose the question, and it is being pondered in the minds Johnson & Johnson vaccine raised fears among many of millions of people around the world every day. about the safety of the J&J vaccine, as well as the To be sure, no medical treatment is for everyone, others not affected by the side effect. and no sane adult should be forced to receive any To quickly recap what happened, 17 women expemedical intervention against their will, even if it’s rienced a rare and very serious form of blot clots aflife-saving. As any oncologists can tell you, people ter receiving the J&J vaccine, and 3 of them died. In refuse life-saving radiation and chemo every day of response, the CDC promptly halted all administration the week. They have their reasons. It’s their choice. of the J&J vaccine while additional research was con What doctors like to know, however, and work ducted. Since then the J&J vaccine has again been to ensure, is that their patients are making solid, given the green light, but before the pause nearly 8 informed choices based on accurate million doses had been administered. information. So asking questions While the 3 deaths are tragic and and doing research is good. In verlamentable, they represent a 0.00003% sion.2021, a degree of vaccine hesitanincident rate. ASK QUESTIONS cy is also good. It shouldn’t be shoot How does that compare to other first, ask questions later (see clever medical interventions? Let’s put it this graphic, right). way: plain old aspirin wishes it had a Of course, there can be problems safety record as microscopic as the J&J SHOOT LATER with doing research and asking vaccine. Here is a quote from an article questions. One is when the researchin the National Library of Medicine, er seeks information from dubious part of the National Institutes of Health: information sources. For example, in “Death rate attributed to NSAID/aspirin searching for information about herd immunity here use was between 21.0 and 24.8 cases/million people, at Medical Examiner world headquarters, we came respectively, or 15.3 deaths/100,000 NSAID/aspirin across an image of a syringe and vaccine vial illususers. Up to one-third of all NSAID/aspirin deaths can trating an article entitled, “The Lie of Herd Immunibe attributed to low-dose aspirin use.” ty.” The source? The World Health Organization? No. Oddly enough, some of the same people who Harvard Medical School, the CDC or Mayo Clinic? don’t hesitate to regularly use aspirin view the No. It was on the website of an organization called COVID vaccines, especially J&J’s, as highly dangerthe Utah Gun Exchange. Probably not the first place ous. A strong counterargument could be made that you should visit for expert vax facts. if the CDC was willing to suspend its approval based Another potential problem is when we seek only on a 0.00003% rate of serious side effects, the vacinformation that supports our preconceived notions. cines are extremely safe. We are convinced that vaccines are safe, so we won’t Incidentally, those initial 8 million J&J shots that reread anything that discusses anything cautionary. sulted in 3 deaths also saved a projected 5,000+ hospiConversely, if we’re against vaccines, we won’t talizations, prevented more than 1,400 ICU admissions, consider any evidence to the contrary, no matter its and are estimated to have saved more than 600 lives. source. In either case, why do research in the first So is it wise to question vaccine safety? Absolutely. place? It is more or less pointless if we’re not going But once the vax facts are in hand — from medical to accept and digest solid information from wellexperts, not social media posters of unknown and informed, credible sources. dubious qualifications — the prudent course is to Recent vaccine news has offered an excellent optake action to stay safe and salubrious. Ask questions portunity for us to use our brains to ingest and digest first. Shoot later. But soon. Don’t wait. +
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