When You’re Not an Anti-Vaxxer but the Coronavirus Vaccine Worries You
COVID vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were developed at record speed. But with 30,000 adverse events reported for vaccines each year, a healthy dose of caution may be just what the doctor ordered.
First, I’m thrilled there’s a new coronavirus vaccine on the horizon. And no — I am not an anti-vaxxer or a conspiracy theorist.
Like you, I’m in awe of the gene-splicing technology that made the vaccine possible and also of the scientists who produced it. But I wonder if the desire to get our lives back may be tempting us to ignore the risks regarding the remaining unknowns.
Think for a minute. Why should choosing to get a coronavirus vaccine be different from managing risk in any other area of life? We apply risk-management strategies to everything from our stock portfolios to the weather.
Businesses all over the world rely on ethics hotlines to help manage risks associated with fraud, insider trading, sexual harassment, and discrimination. We even consider risks when browsing dating apps or choosing porn. Is this video really worth the danger of having malware installed in my root directory? Or compromising the privacy of everyone in my contacts app?
Risk is a fact of modern life. Unfortunately, so is COVID-19
The dangerous spread of coronavirus is so severe that it has imposed upon us yet another humiliation. Along with massive unemployment, multi-mile/multi-laned food lines, business closures, mask-wearing, and near economic collapse, it now entices us to line up for a revolutionary new treatment that did not exist as recently as Valentine’s Day of this year. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Phase 1 testing began in mid-March.
When I first heard scientists were on track to develop a coronavirus vaccine in record-breaking time, I was happy. Then I was sad when the vaccine became politicized during the election. Now I’m happy again — almost.
That’s because two companies have announced “safe” treatments that are 95% effective. A third has produced a vaccine that’s 90% effective. As of this writing, one of them (Pfizer) has already applied for emergency FDA approval. If granted, the vaccine could be available to first responders and at-risk populations before the end of this year.
It’s comforting to know the vaccines have completed rigorous clinical trialsthat included 41 thousand people at Pfizer alone. During the Pfizer trials, there were 10 severe cases of COVID-19 infection. Nine were in the placebo group. Only one was in the vaccinated group.
That says a lot about the new vaccine. After all, some people still come down with the flu after vaccination. And according to Pfizer and Moderna, their coronavirus vaccines are effective across race, age, and gender groups.
But as with wearing a mask, it’s up to me to make the final decision. Should I let someone inject this brand new thing into my body?
During the presidential campaign, the answer was a resounding NO WAY. Even with politics removed for the most part, I still have reservations about jumping into line right away. And that’s after studying how this new treatment works.
Here’s a simple — really simple — explanation:
Inside your body, you have a bunch of tiny single-strand molecules called messenger RNA. Sometimes referred to as mRNA. This messenger is the most important player in the new coronavirus vaccine game. Because without it, the rest of the game can’t be played at all.
Why is messenger RNA so important?
Because it has one job. That job is to deliver a secret message to your DNA and the proteins within your body. What is DNA? It’s the instruction manual for your entire physical makeup. The proteins are agents that interact with your DNA to do the work of keeping your body running according to the manual.
But what does this have to do with the vaccine?
Everything. Because Pfizer and Moderna (and eventually a few other firms) have figured out a way to use the messenger-molecule (mRNA) to alert your body’s immune system to the threat posed by COVID-19.
The reason coronavirus has been able to infect and kill millions of people so far is that the human body has no previous experience with it — and therefore has no ability to provide an immune response. Think of it as the COVID-19 ambush.
How does the messenger-molecule protect me from this ambush?
By definition, an ambush is a surprise attack. It catches you unawares because you can’t see the villain lying in wait for you behind a rock. By becoming a “snitch” or “informant,” the messenger-molecule eliminates the surprise, rendering the ambush ineffective.
Snitch, Informant? Sounds like James Bond
Indeed it does. Because the messenger-molecule acts like a Secret Agent. And in this case, the secret is the genetic code for COVID-19. Back in January 2020, the Chinese government released the genetic sequence for the virus to the rest of the world.
With that information in tow, scientists have been working feverishly for most of the year to implant that genetic information in the extremely fragile messenger-molecule known as mRNA.
The world of science has known the genetic code for months. But as far as the human body was concerned, that information was a secret.
But what does this mean for me?
If you receive the vaccine, a strand of mRNA loaded with the genetic code for the virus is injected into your body. That genetic code contains something called the “spike protein” that is COVID-19.
Once this temporary messenger is in your body, your immune system immediately recognizes it as foreign and begins to build up antibodies to fight it off. If you do not have the virus, your body is now prepared to protect itself should you become exposed to it.
As far as your body is concerned, coronavirus is no longer a secret. All because a fragile single-strand molecule, coded with COVID-19’s genetic information, has became medicine’s James Bond.
According to the CDC, your body breaks down the messenger-molecule after this caper is over and gets rid of it.
This is a big deal and a potential game changer
In the past, like with flu vaccines, you were injected with a synthetic form of the flu, which took a long time to develop and was only about 40% effective. With the James Bond approach, you only receive the genetic information, not the actual virus.
The ramifications are tremendous. If this medical technology can be applied to coronavirus, who’s to say there won’t be other applications for fighting diseases in the future?
To fact-check me on this admittedly simplistic explanation, check out the co-founder of Moderna explaining the vaccine to Judy Woodruff on the PBS NewsHour. Or this written breakdown from NBC News. Or even the recent piece by science writer Emily Mullin in Future Human.
Here’s why I put time and energy into understanding this.
If I decide to get vaccinated, this genetically informed molecule is going into my body. Since I’m not a scientist, I needed to explain the process to myself without getting bogged down in scientific jargon.
For me, this decision is important
I’m very careful about what I put in my body. Which means I’m a label-reader who’s constantly on the lookout for saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup, cholesterol, sodium, and the long list of unpronounceable chemical compounds in processed foods. If I take extra time in the supermarket, why wouldn’t I get clear with myself about whether it’s safe to receive the coronavirus vaccine?
Here’s where I am so far
Because the vaccine codes only the temporary messenger-molecule in order to trick the body into generating its own antibodies, this new approach may work just fine. So far, the available literature indicates that it is safe — if we can rely on the experience of 41 thousand participants across race, gender, and age, who received the two-step vaccine in Pfizer’s clinical trials.
But 41,000 is a small number compared to a worldwide population of 7.8 billion, 328 million of whom live in the U.S.
Also, even though things look good so far, scientists have only had a few months to observe the effects of the new treatment, compared to the usual two-year period (or longer) for other experimental vaccines.
In 1990, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) established The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) to detect possible “signals” of adverse events associated with vaccines. About 30,000 such events are reported each year. Between 10% and 15% of these reports describe serious medical events that result in hospitalization, life-threatening illness, disability, or death.
Lining up for a vaccine about which we have scant evidence of adverse events over time is putting a lot of faith in people who don’t always have our best interests at heart.
On November 22, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, an investor who is also on the board of Pfizer, told Face the Nation it’s going to take time before we get a better idea of what happens with the new vaccine.
Most adverse events related to vaccines happen within the first 40 days or first two months of vaccination. But we’re not going to know the full profile until you have that long term follow up data. And that’s why the FDA is taking a prudent approach here. And they’re not going to probably generally license this vaccine until they have six or eight months of long term follow-up data on the patients who have been vaccinated in the trial, as well as those that they follow who get vaccinated now over the course of the next several months.
An unexpected tragedy during the Salk Vaccine
In 1953, after announcing the polio vaccine he’d been working on since 1948, Dr. Jonas Salk continued clinical trials through 1955 when the vaccine was deemed safe, effective, and ready for national distribution. But then along came a familiar nemesis — human error. More than 200,000 people were injected with a defective vaccine that left thousands with polio, paralyzing 200 and killing ten.
It’s a sad reminder that mistakes happen. The new Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be kept at minus-90 and minus-20 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively. Between the point of manufacture and the point of a needle, what could go wrong?
Big Pharma, money and symptoms
A healthy dose of skepticism is always a good idea when large amounts of money are involved. Earlier this year, the White House poured $12 billion dollars into Operation Warp Speed. But as the Business Insider reported in late August, there has been an alarming lack of transparency in how that money has been spent.
And despite all the good news, many of us can expect to feel more than a little sick with Covid-like “symptoms” after each of the two injections.
For me, this comes down to assessing personal risk
I must weigh the risk of contracting COVID-19 against these side effects and the risk of a possibly unknown adverse effect down the road.
It’s encouraging that Pfizer has released its findings for regulatory clearance, peer review, and potential challenges from other scientists. No doubt Moderna and the others will soon follow suit. That additional information will help me make up my mind about whether to get vaccinated. But none of these evaluations will provide the same assurance as the two- to four-year observation period used for most vaccines.
Like you, I don’t want to become infected with COVID-19. But I do want to feel as secure as possible about the potential remedy.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to wear a mask, wash my hands, and practice social distancing. These things won’t hurt me. That is not something I can say with certainty yet about the new coronavirus vaccine.
© 2020 Andrew Jazprose Hill. All Rights Reserved
Author Note: In April of 2021, I decided to get a COVID vaccine after weighing all the evidence mentioned in this piece against the risks of community spread.