Making A Rational Case To Not Be Vaccinated
Vaccines. A somewhat controversial topic before Covid, now, a raging debate at the forefront of American discourse. To be clear, I want to say I believe, in general, that vaccines work and should be taken when possible. After all, when is the last time you saw someone being pushed around in an iron lung? Also, I’m not a virologist or a biologist, so I have about as much expertise in this area as most anyone else. That being said, I do have a brain and can shift through information and arrive at a conclusion on a subject. Each person must also do this because no one: not Joe Biden, not Donald Trump; not Dr. Anthony Fauci, knows what’s better for you personally—than you do.
You may have noticed in the last few months that it’s become a habit for the sports media to conduct purity tests on athletes and public figures. The media asks an athlete or coach if they’ve been vaccinated, and if the athlete or coach says no or refuses to answer, then the media begins piling on with articles and tweets naming the person a heretic of science, a danger to society, and probably a Trump supporter. The implication of the last one usually means that the person probably supports the events on January 6th. Such is the logic of morons.
In recent weeks, Buffalo Bills wideout Cole Beasley has come out against being vaccinated. Arizona Cardinals wideout, Deandre Hopkins, and Dallas QB, Dak Prescott have made similar statements. Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots assistant coaches, Rick Dennison and Cole Popovich have quit their jobs due to opposition to being vaccinated. This comes in the wake of the NFL’s new covid policy that will penalize teams should unvaccinated players, coaches, and personnel violate league-mandated covid protocols. These penalties include fines and forfeiting games.
As for the players themselves, they are accused of being selfish individuals who don’t want their teams to win and wish death upon themselves and others. When Deandre Hopkins reacted to the NFL’s new rules:
Never thought I would say this, But being in a position to hurt my team because I don’t want to partake in the vaccine is making me question my future in the @nfl.”
Predictably, the media began their ritual shaming:
The Arizona Republic
No, it’s not jail, it’s a lingering pandemic fueled by the Delta variant, and if they’re not going to protect themselves with the science, then they’re a threat to themselves and a potential health hazard to everyone else.
The LA Times
Understand, the media worships at the altar of “Science”. Science, a god of many faces, that conveniently takes the form of any scientist that promulgates Democrat talking points, is all-knowing and all-powerful. It’s not uncommon to hear someone screeching “trust the science!” with the same fervency as a Christian saying “trust in God”. Much like the Gods of the Abrahamic lineage, the god Science is never wrong. When its prophecies and proclamations are inaccurate or false, it’s because like the God of Christianity, science works in mysterious ways. Therefore, we must accept the prophets’ ever-shifting “settled science” and make room for new, seemingly contradictory facts. To question the doublethink required to hold both ideas simultaneously is heresy against the church and cause for banishment.
In a rational world, we'd listen to the reasons why these people don’t want the vaccine. Perhaps, we would present countervailing evidence in an effort to persuade them to take it. In the end, however, maybe all we can do is agree to disagree, leave each other alone—but that isn’t a world we live in. Instead, we must force the opposition to live as we would like. We want to use Government force and societal pressure to compel our opponents to violate their free will.
So, in the name of actual science, I want to perform an experiment. I want to use the remainder of this post to try and convince others, rather than force them, that there are in fact, numerous valid reasons that a person may choose not to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
First, let’s start with the facts;
As of this writing, according to Worldometers, there have been 195,132,035 recorded cases of Covid-19. 4,179,757 deaths and 176,973,374 recoveries.
The U.S. has had 35,202,558 cases with 626,769 deaths.
No one knows definitively where the virus originated from. While we know geographically that came from China, we don’t know if it occurred naturally or was created in a lab.
Since the introduction of the vaccines, best estimates reveal that they may have prevented an additional 279,000 deaths and 1.25 million hospitalizations.
The vaccines are experimental and have not been fully authorized by the FDA.
The vaccines have side effects ranging from mild to death.
There is no longitudinal data to confirm or disconfirm that there will be no long-term effects, especially with children.
The virus affects various populations differently. The elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are more likely to be hospitalized and/or die.
Taken at face value, these facts provide numerous pros and cons on why someone would choose to take or not take the vaccine. For the purposes of my argument, I’m going to take the position of someone who doesn’t want a vaccine.
First, I question the validity of fact numbers 1 & 2. While it is true that Covid-19 is real, I would argue that the numbers presented in these facts are unreliable. My reasons are twofold.
1) The tests for covid are unreliable. In fact, just this week:
The CDC said Wednesday it will withdrawal its request for the "Emergency Use Authorization" of real-time diagnostic testing kits, which were used starting in February 2020 to detect signs of the coronavirus, by the end of the year.
This means that anyone who tested positive with these tests might not have had Covid, which would throw the cited number off by an unknown magnitude.
2) There’s a difference between “died from Covid” and “died with Covid”. For example, if someone is admitted to the hospital with a head injury and subsequently develops Covid and dies: Did they die from the virus or the head injury? What’s the objective measure for determination other than a medical opinion? As Dr. Deborah Birx stated earlier last year, “if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.” Therefore, the true numbers of death from Covid-19 are likely unknowable.
To piggyback off this, the information that the general public has received about this virus and how to handle it is often wrong or has been an outright lie. The “Experts” both in the Government and media have flipped and/or made outright nonsensical claims about “the science”. How Dr. Anthony Fauci still has a job, boggles the mind. The man whose job it is to provide the best information on public health has either lied or made predictions with the pinpoint accuracy of a magic eight ball.
Next, the vaccines are experimental or to be more succinct, emergency authorized. They also have side effects and no longitudinal data. While it is true that all available evidence shows that these vaccines do seem to work at lowering infections and preventing deaths, no one can say with any certainty what negative effects they may have in the near or long term. Often, the answer to this accusation is something along the lines of the FDA, CDC, the WHO, Academia has seen the studies from the drug companies. Trust them and trust the science. This is a logical fallacy that appeals to authority. The reason why this is fallacious is that all one needs to do to disprove the argument is discredit the authority. For example, Pfizer, one of the vaccine manufacturers, has settled multiple lawsuits for misleading consumers about the potentially harmful side effects of numerous drugs:
American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and its subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. (hereinafter together "Pfizer") have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products, the Justice Department announced today.
In addition, Pfizer has agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs – Bextra; Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug – and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs. The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668,514,830 and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331,485,170. This is the largest civil fraud settlement in history against a pharmaceutical company.
The problem with drug companies is that they are first and foremost—businesses, and their first duty is to their shareholders. This doesn’t mean that they can’t or won’t produce a true life-saving therapeutic or vaccine. It does mean, however, that there is an incentive structure in place for these companies to downplay any negatives associated with their product.
In theory, the checks and balances in place are the FDA and the process of peer review. As we can see from these lawsuits, neither of these have been particularly efficient. Even Academia, who presumably only has an interest in the truth, should be a bulwark against any profit-driven motives.
Trust. The. Science.
Moving on, the side effects though rare, are documented. Some of the more common are:
Pain, redness or swelling where the shot was given
Fever
Fatigue
Headache
Muscle pain
Chills
Joint pain
Nausea and vomiting
Feeling unwell
Swollen lymph nodes
Even more troubling is the vaccines may affect your heart:
In the U.S., there has been an increase in reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, particularly in male adolescents and young adults age 16 and older. Myocarditis is the inflammation of the heart muscle, while pericarditis is the inflammation of the lining outside the heart.
In particular, the Janssen & Johnson vaccine carries some of the worst documented side effects:
Some people who received the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine have developed Guillain-Barre syndrome. This is a rare disorder in which your body’s immune system attacks your nerves. The chances of this happening are very low.
Symptoms most often appeared within 42 days of vaccination. Seek immediate medical care after getting the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine if you have:
Weakness or tingling sensations, especially in the legs or arms, that worsens and spreads to other body parts
Difficulty walking
Difficulty with facial movements, including speaking, chewing or swallowing
Double vision or inability to move eyes
Difficulty with bladder control or bowel function
Use of the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine might increase the risk of a rare and serious blood clotting disorder. Nearly all of those affected have been women ages 18 to 49, with the disorder happening at a rate of 7 for every 1 million vaccinated women in this age group. For women age 50 and older and men of all ages, the disorder is even more rare.
In short, although the side effects of these vaccines are rare, they are possible. and could be severe. Juxtapose that with the actual recovery rate of the virus. The best estimate from the CDC puts that at about 98%. Further, factoring in preexisting conditions such as obesity and age, the chances of death are lessened even more.
Finally, what does the evidence suggest are your risks if you catch Covid and recover versus getting the vaccine, with or without ever having covid?
A small study performed recently at the Clevland clinic suggest:
In conclusion, individuals who have laboratory-confirmed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.
Clearly, more research is needed, but it would be reasonable for someone to forgo vaccination and the risk of potential side-effects if they, at the very least, have already contracted Covid and recovered.
In conclusion, consider the NFL athlete. These men are young and some of the most physically fit people in the world.
Coaches—not so much.
It’s clear from the evidence presented that players choosing not to be vaccinated may actually be making the better choice. The NFL’s defacto mandate for vaccines is decidedly anti-science. To begin with, there are no penalties for players or coaches who get vaccinated, but still, get infected. The penalties only apply to players and teams with unvaccinated personnel. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that players are at risk from serious health problems should they choose not to get vaccinated. In fact, one could argue they are assuming an unnecessary excess risk by getting one. The NFL’s stance is entirely unmoored from any sort of logic. In short, The NFL is engaging in the performative nonsense that is expected from the media and their political allies.
Inevitably, we reach the tiresome argument that this isn’t about you, but rather, saving other people. If you don’t want to get to be vaccinated, that means you’re a threat to society. A murderer. You have blood on your hands. What this argument fails to address, and is made unequivocally clear by the NFL’s logically inconsistent protocols, is that if you choose to be vaccinated and I don’t, what’s the problem? There is yet, that I can see, a coherent explanation to this. If I get vaccinated, presumably, this is to prevent me from either A) Getting infected, B) Not getting seriously ill, or C) both. So in actuality, this is about the individual. Should someone decide not to get vaccinated, how is that anyone else’s problem? How does that make that person a murderer, if I make the choice to protect myself? Does a vaccine only work if everyone else gets it? Because that doesn’t sound like it works at all.
The only explanation is that this has very little to do with vaccines, and everything to do with power and control. There is a small, but very loud segment of society who believe they have been endowed by our creator, not with equal rights, but with a superior constitution. They are our moral betters, and thus, deserve to control those whom they deem to be inferior. Unfortunately, and to their everlasting frustration, this isn’t the country that allows it. Every person is free to make their own choices—even if that choice hurts them. To borrow from the Pro-Choice community, “My body my choice” and what happens to you is yours.
Great article! Gone are the days of freedom for America. If the vaccine was as life saving as the snake oil salesmen claim, the vaccine would NOT be free. It would come with a rather expensive price and the only way the "Charlie Buckets" of the world could get their hands on it, would be a rather ridiculous lottery given from Willey.