When a vaccine arrives

[VonDerTann]

They talk about things. You would too if you were on a multi-day road
Trip.

 

[Allegra]

I wouldn’t talk about what medication I was taking with a stranger! I wouldn’t talk about much of anything if an employer started asking me questions like that!

 

[VonDerTann]

When you have a small number of people living and working in very close proximity for several days - like driving 12 hours x 3 days and sharing a motel room - they are going to get to know each other really, really well.

Having participated in such a trip, I can vouch for that, and it certainly accounts for turnover. Moving is a backbreaking job with a lot of demanding clients to be kept happy, and many movers hire illegals just to hold down costs.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Vaccine multipurposing (for population control reasons) was a big issue 3 years ago in Kenya…

…only because of misinformation circulated by anti-vaccination interests. The compound found in trace amounts that was a component of birth control drugs did not cause any decline in fertility.

so you can imagine the response in Kenya to the notion of Africa as corona virus vaccine testing ground. Here’s an excerpt:
"Raila, who was addressing the press from Capitol Hill, said laboratory tests from various hospitals showed the vaccine had traces of a hormone that would render the recipients infertile.

“The Catholic Church was right. Hundreds of our girls aged between 14 and 49 years old will not have children because of the state sponsored sterilization project that was sold to the state as tetanus vaccination,” said Raila.

And Raila turned out to be wrong, as hundreds of girls that were vaccinated did not become sterilized. But as Jonathan Swift famously wrote:

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over and the tale hath had its effect.

 

[jeannetherese]

I think you might have missed the context Leaf. We were discussing an adverse reaction in Kenya to the possibility of Africa being used for trials of a corona vaccine. Concerns about Ebola and the Tetanus campaigns are part of the context in which populations respond to new initiatives and may be informing the reaction.
One of the challenges of making a vaccine palatable to potential recipients, is the concern that it might be a delivery device for other things.
Whether its the Tudkegee experiment, a similar experiment in Guatemala at the same time (and funded by the U.S., supporting with Fukuyama in Peru with his coercive sterilization campaigns against indigenous women, or the campaigns against HIV positive women in LDCs, medial professionals have not always prioritized informed consent in regard to their patients.
This can lead to suspicion among certain populations. One does not need to be in agreement with the suspicions in every case to understand why some might be nervous about vaccine studies being carried out in LDCs.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

One does not need to be in agreement with the suspicions in every case to understand why some might be nervous about vaccine studies being carried out in LDCs.

It is not a matter of opinion. It is a fact that the suspicions were founded on a falsehood. But even accepting that this falsehood is widely believed, this latest controversy about a covid-19 vaccine is also misrepresented. I found no evidence that any large group of “European nations” are planning on testing a covid-19 virus primarily in Africa. The current outrage by some in Kenya is over a televised interview of two French doctors. And the interview was not about some future untested covid-19 vaccine, but over the “re-purposing” of an existing and proven safe tuberculosis vaccine that has been around for decades. And the vaccine trial would not be conducted primarily in Africa, but in European nations as well. The thing that was racist was how the doctor justified the inclusion of Africa, by saying that without the vaccine, Africa was bound to suffer worse than more developed nations because of the scarcity of medical facilities. One of the two French doctors has since apologized for the carelessness of his wording. In any case, vaccine trials were to be (and will be done) with informed consent. So they will not be like the Tuskegee experiment and similar outrages of the past.

 

[JoeFreedom]

What about those who may consider not doing it immediately, but decide after some time to end up getting it at some point?

Not saying that is me, or not me, just saying that is a category.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

I’ll be one of the first in line for the vaccine.

 

[Mtatum1958]

What about those who may consider not doing it immediately

I think that would be a small, but not insignificant group. I don’t think think the group of those saying never would be as large as previously stated.

 

[Peaceable]

This is demonstrably false. There are many young people who are coming to this illness, who don’t have pre-existing conditions. Please review the data from multiple cities that demonstrate that large numbers of those who were in the ICU or hospitalized are not elderly.Though, people with pre-existing conditions are more at risk.

Areas that have engaged in early social distancing have a lower than expected rates of disease.

 

[Peaceable]

I hear you. And yet let me present the other side of this argument. I realize this won’t persuade anyone to consider getting vaccinated, I certainly understand the concerns about safety. Every time a patient gets sick and ends up being hospitalized, they put multiple frontline healthcare workers at risk. Not to mention other members of the community. Setting aside the issue of Vaccination, one of my biggest concerns when it comes to people ignoring social distancing recommendations Is the potential effect on healthcare workers. They are among the most vulnerable because of their rates of exposure despite their being often younger and healthy.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I am not anti vaccine, but I will not be taking any brand new vaccine. Something like this has a risk of being rushed and I’d like to see it around for awhile before playing that game of roulette. I don’t like being a test case for anything, whether it’s a brand new electronic, drug, etc.

I also still don’t believe this is anything the majority of people need to be concerned about. Those at risk should appropriate measures.

This attitude toward vaccinations misses a major reason for taking them. They are not just for the benefit of the one person taking them. They are for the common good. A person who is young and healthy and at low risk from dying from this disease, nevertheless have a duty toward society to take actions that prevent the virus from infecting others, which would likely include many elderly loved ones of the person who you say “need not be concerned”. Those at risk should take appropriate measures, and those not at risk should also take appropriate measures on behalf of those who are at risk. That is Catholic morality, and this is the Moral Theology forum.

That said, I might agree with you that adequate testing of a vaccine is very important and should not be unduly rushed. The public at large should not ever be called upon to take a “brand new vaccine” in the sense that it has been inadequately tested.

 

[Pattylt]

The public at large should not ever be called upon to take a “brand new vaccine” in the sense that it has been inadequately tested.

This is my feeling as well. Having dealt with the CDC, most of the regulations and requirements are necessary for everyone’s safety. Some regulations are just bureaucracy gone wild. As long as they don’t bypass the first and only bypass the second, I’m confident that a vaccine will be safe when released to the general public. The big question is…will we know which processes were bypassed? I’ll be reading the papers when published as they always do.

Thanks everyone for a great discussion! I understand completely those that will defer taking a vaccine and hope those that refuse one will eventually feel confident enough to take it. I have a granddaughter that was born a micropremie and her early years were worrisome as she had to wait to be able to get any vaccination. We completely had to depend on herd immunity. When she finally reached a stage of development to get her shots…oh my! …she had so many shots in her tiny bum it broke my heart. But she’s a trooper to this day. Those born so early have to be…she was barely 22 weeks gestation and weighed 1lb 12ozs. and 13” long. I can only imagine the fears of new moms of micropremies today facing a pandemic!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yeah, the flip side with these vaccines is that if you don’t get the vaccine you’re also often taking a risk. I knew a person who did not get the polio vaccine in the mid or late 1950s when they were a child, because they didn’t have enough to go around and the person was not in the group designated most in need of the limited supply of vaccine. So instead the person ended up catching polio. Fortunately they made a full recovery and lived a normal life, but it must have been very scary.

 

[Pattylt]

I’m just barely old enough to remember the polio epidemics and I do remember how terrified everyone was…doors with quarantine signs on them, pictures of iron lungs with the victims in them, newspaper warnings when polio season was starting, etc. I definitely remember the people with shortened legs, on crutches, special shoes.

When the oral vaccine became available, it was distributed at schools and the entire family lined up to get it. I’m sure there were those that either couldn’t get it or it ran short. I do know that almost 60 years later, some of those victims that partially or fully recovered, had relapses. There was permant damage to their spinal cord that wasn’t known at the time. As they became older/elderly, symptoms resurfaced. It was truly a horrible disease.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think the answer is development of what they call “herd immunity”. If, for example, there is some disease potentially affecting a herd of cattle and if, for some reason a few don’t get the vaccination but the rest do, the chances of the unvaccinated getting it are much reduced because most in the herd won’t pass it along if some outside source with it comes in contact with them.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It’s also apparently still around relatively close to the USA if not in it. There are areas of Mexico where it is floating around and the vax is recommended if you are visiting those areas.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is interesting. I wonder whether it was a real relapse or just a manifestation of neurological redundancy getting used up. All our lives we get “hits” to all of our systems, including our neurological systems. But most of the time it doesn’t matter much because we have a lot of redundant capacity. But eventually, that can run out, in which case the result of another “hit” can be severe.

 

[Pattylt]

The relapsed patients were studied because the one thing they had in common was previous polio. I’m reaching back into my dusty memory here but I believe they found lesions on their spinal cords that caused it. Most of the relapsed were elderly but a few were younger and contacted polio in other countries where we hadn’t completely wiped it out.

It’s also apparently still around relatively close to the USA if not in it. There are areas of Mexico where it is floating around and the vax is recommended if you are visiting those areas.

I haven’t heard of any cases in the US but it’s not like I’m reading all medical journals everyday either! . I also haven’t heard of cases in Mexico. THAT is a bit too close for my comfort. A reemergence of polio would strike terror into anyone that hasn’t had the vaccine.

 

[AlbMagno]

Yes, but you also risk the unvaccinated to contract the disease, and probably their children too as getting unvaccinated can become a cultural choice within the family.

If the maximum number of people get vaccinated, the risk of a serious disease to reappear is close to 0.