Misinformation: A threat to the vaccine’s validity

Claire R. and Ellie F.

Recently, an article was published in the Falcon Flash about mandated COVID-19 vaccinations. Regardless of personal beliefs, the COVID-19 vaccine has been developed, tested and checked repeatedly by science. We acknowledge that, while it is your opinion of the government’s right to force vaccination, its safety is an entirely different topic – one backed by extensive research which proves its effectiveness. When reading on the efficacy of the vaccine and its benefits to the medical wellness of our country, it is important to understand the science and tied to this often life-saving medical measure.

Vaccinations and Death Rate: Arguably the most harmful notion within the article could be found in the featured facts comparing the risk of death between unvaccinated and vaccinated pupils. Claims regarding adolescent mortality rates cited mathematically improbable information about death rates after the vaccine. One bullet point that stated that 10-14 year olds with two doses “appear to have 52 times the death rate” can be traced back to an article from The Daily Expose, interpreting the UK Office of National Statistics information. Not only have the website’s claims been discredited by public health researcher Devon Greyson at the University of British Columbia, but the site provides plenty of other baseless conspiracy theories surrounding COVID-19. Despite what some may claim, COVID-19 deaths and complications have far outpaced possible health risks and deaths relating to the vaccine. VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, was created in 1990 as a warning system to identify potential risks with vaccines and is used to track the current COVID-19 vaccine. Between December 14, 2020 and May 23, 2022 over 584,000,000 COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the U.S. Among these that VAERS received, there are just “14,778 preliminary reports of death among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine,” or just 0.0025% of vaccinations. Continued monitoring (by the FDA and CDC) showed only nine deaths, which were associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. This data has continued to prove that, not only is the vaccine statistically proven to be of low death risk, but also that COVID-19 and its possible effects pose a much greater risk than the vaccine.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, data has proved the following concerning mortality rates of the vaccinated and unvaccinated (Jan.1, 2021 to Apr. 11, 2022):

  • 70 percent of reported COVID-19 cases were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.
  • 82 percent of reported hospitalizations (with COVID-19 as the primary diagnosis/cause of admission) were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.
  • 78 percent of COVID-19-related deaths (among individuals who had an infection) were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.

Developing the Vaccine: One important thing to understand about Covid-19 is that it’s not the only existing coronavirus, as there are others including SARS and MERS. Since both of these viruses already had developed vaccines, the creation of the COVID-19 vaccine was able to be done quicker, due to the previous information gathered about the type of vaccine and virus. The next step in the process is clinical trials, which are often conducted one after the other. With the COVID-19 vaccine, the trials overlapped to allow them to still happen safely, but in a timelier manner. FDA authorization is the last hurdle that vaccines must deal with to determine that the vaccine is safe and effective. The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization allowing the vaccine to be manufactured quickly while not cutting any standards and maintaining every strict safety measure put in place by the FDA. There was still, however, a requirement to uphold the necessary scientific measures. The vaccine might have been developed quickly, but previous research as well as many other measures were taken to allow for the vaccine to be created without compromising the safety of the vaccine.

Infertility Claims: Another misconception addressed is that the COVID-19 vaccine could cause infertility, which has been proven false by a range of scientists. This misconception started in December of 2020 when German scientist Dr. Wolfgang Wodrag and former Pfizer employee Dr. Michael Yeadon developed the hypothesis that the vaccine could cause infertility. They feared that there is a spike protein of COVID-19 that shares a small piece of genetic code with syncytin-1 (a protein in the placenta) and the vaccine would attack the protein causing the placenta to be attacked as well. According to OB/GYN Dr. Gorje, who leads the Reproductive Infectious Diseases Program at Cleveland Clinic, if the vaccine did attack the placenta, there would be a rise in miscarriages among vaccinated pregnant women–but such an increase has not occurred. This fear of infertility was also disproven in a study conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In this study, data was analyzed from more than 2,000 couples who were trying to conceive from December 2020 through September 2021. The study found that those with the vaccine were not any less likely to get pregnant than any other participants. It concluded that when the male contracted COVID-19 the couple were less likely to conceive, showing that, if anything, COVID itself could affect fertility.

Mandates as a Separate Issue: For any scientific study or research to be credible, including such on the COVID-19 vaccine, trials and subsequent research must follow rigorous standards and are peer reviewed before publication. The discoveries that scientists make follow a long, and often arduous, process to examine and assess complex pieces of scientific processes many citizens are not trained or educated on to understand. Placing our understanding in this thorough research is the basis for modern medicine in every aspect–the vaccines received by children to go to school, doctor’s treatments plans, medicine we take when we’re sick, were all developed through science.

 

 

References:

  • World Health Organization. (2021). COVID-19 and mandatory vaccination: Ethical considerations and caveats. World Health Organization. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep35607
  • A Prospective Cohort Study of COVID-19 Vaccination, SARS-CoV-2 Infection, and Fertility, American Journal of Epidemiology, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwac011
  • Covid-19 vaccines: Myth versus fact. Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2022, April 29). https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines myth-versus-fact
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). More evidence that covid-19 vaccines do not cause infertility. National Institutes of Health. https://covid19.nih.gov/news-and-stories/more-evidence-covid-19-vaccines-do-not-cause-infertility
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Selected adverse events reported after COVID-19 vaccination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
  • Kaputk. (2022, March 30). How covid-19 (and the vaccine) can impact your fertility. Cleveland Clinic. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/covid-vaccine-and-fertility/
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Developing covid-19 vaccines. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/distributing/steps-ensure-safety.html
  • Google scholar. Devon Greyson Cited By. (n.d.). https://scholar.google.com/