"Vaccines Don't Save Lives"
I can just hear your initial comment: does the title of this essay really indicate the possibility that vaccines will not/cannot save us from COVID-19? Has Stone really moved over to the “dark side” and forsaken science like many of the Trumpeters? Has he learned nothing from all the dozens upon dozens of clinical trials he has been privy to these past many months? Before you devolve into a state of utter apoplexy, let me assure you that the answer is “No, no, a thousand times NO! I do not for one second believe that vaccines do not/cannot save lives.” Rather, in the words of Walter Orenstein, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, Global Health, and Pediatrics at Emory University, (one of the nation’s truly supreme epidemiologists), “Vaccines don’t save lives. Vaccinations save lives.” In another essay, Dr. Orenstein wrote: “Vaccinations save lives. A vaccine dose that remains in a vial is zero-percent effective.” I can hear Homer Simpson sarcastically responding “DOH!”
It is (or at least should be) just that simple: vaccines are a matter of science; vaccinations, frequently (and most lamentably) a matter of partisan politics. Tragically, angrily, frighteningly, it is not that simple. And it’s not just about a vaccine (or vaccines) still in the early stages of clinical trials. For years, there have been people in various parts of the world who firmly believe that various vaccines are both a hoax and a danger. As a result, diseases which, for the most part, have disappeared from the face of the earth have reappeared - with terrible consequences. Every year, people - notably children - become horribly sick and ofttimes die from easily preventable diseases . . . like measles in Samoa, Fiji and Tonga, polio in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria and human papillomavirus infections in Japan. And here in the United States, there has been an ongoing debate as to whether or not a local communal authority like a city council, board of county supervisors or school board has the right to demand that children be given a MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination before being enrolled in public school.
Why this debate, considering that MMR has been mostly eliminated as a result of children being vaccinated? Two reasons: first, because in 1998, a major medical journal based in the UK, The Lancet, published a report headed by Andrew Wakefield, who was at that time a gastroenterological surgeon and medical researcher. The report implied a causal link between the above-mentioned measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and the development of autism combined with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) in children, which Wakefield described as a new syndrome he named “autistic entercolitis.” For more than a decade after its initial publication, the media widely reported on the study, leading tens of thousands of people to believe that the suggestion about the MMR vaccine must be true. As a result of this global vaccine scare, immunization rates dropped in the UK and North America. This of course has also lead to an increase in recent years of cases of measles, which the vaccine could have prevented. (Wakefield, it should be noted, had his medical license taken away and The Lancet retracted the original article.) The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) published a very straightforward, exhaustively researched study entitled Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism. Nevertheless, to this day, tens of thousands of parents refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated. Even more telling, there are innumerable websites still warning against the dangers of the MMR vaccine.
The second reason? Politics, plain and simple. More specifically, because of political libertarianism which holds that whenever a governmental entity or body demands that a person receive a vaccination - or obtain health insurance, wear a mask, or observe social distancing - as but three examples - it is an infringement upon individual liberty and can thus be avoided or disobeyed.
One thing I fear is that when (not if) the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approves the first of what promises to be several vaccines against COVID-19, there will be those who refuse to be vaccinated. They will likely claim that the disease is a hoax, the vaccine(s) is/are going to sicken people further, and that the government does not possess the legal right to tell citizens what they must do. (To be consistent, these libertarians should also demand the right to drive cars and motorcycles without being insured, belted or helmeted. But remember Emerson’s dictum: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” To be certain, in this instance, I quote Emerson with tongue-in-cheek.
It pains me every time I watch, read or listen to people who deride or denigrate the masters of medicine and science; who put their “right” to be free from any constraint mandated by government above my “right”to be healthy and from them infecting me or mine. I want to shake them and make them listen while I explain the vast difference that exists between scientific research and abject alchemy. COVID-19 is not a hoax perpetrated by liberals; it was not created in a Chinese lab under a grant from George Soros; it will simply not disappear just because a president who’s headed for the last political round-up says so. Bleach, Hydroxychloroquine, vitamin C and summertime cannot cure it. Wearing masks, washing one’s hands many times a day, and social distancing can help keep its spread in check. If you want to know how to lose weight, go to a coach or dietitian; don’t waste time drinking diet soda. If you want to lessen your chances of testing positive for Corona Virus - or worse, infecting others - listen to and obey the wisdom of epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists; don’t take the words or suppositions of political “leaders” as gospel.
Just as vaccines cannot save lives if they merely remain in vials sitting on laboratory shelves, so too will “medical” advice fail if it comes largely from politicians and sellers of snake oil.
115 days until November 3, 2020.
Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone