Roger Watson and Niall McCrae share their opinions on the current debate, or lack of, around Covid19 and the wider vaccine issue.
The problem with anti-vaxxers
The first response to this question is to recognise that ‘anti-vaxxer’ is, essentially, a term of abuse and it is levelled at anyone who casts doubt on any aspects of vaccination programmes. This is unfair. Opinions on vaccines exist on a spectrum between the ‘no doubters’ at each end: those who would accept any vaccine without doubts and those who would not accept any vaccine, also without doubts. In between there are people who have legitimate and unfounded concerns about vaccines, people who have specific concerns about specific vaccines, e.g. the COVID-19 vaccines, and people with extreme concerns but who accept them under duress. If there are true ‘anti-vaxxers’ it is the people at the end of the spectrum who would never accept any vaccine and, amongst these, the group who actively campaign against all vaccination programmes. These could be described and the anti-vaccination absolutists.
Questioning the safety of vaccines, the possibility of compulsory vaccination and the prospect of vaccination passports is entirely legitimate. Indeed, questioning the exact nature of the coronavirus, whether there is definitive proof it is the cause of the present pandemic and the accuracy of the available tests is also legitimate. I have done that myself simply because the consequences of the economic and social lockdown, mainly affecting people on whom the virus will have little to no effect, are extremely serious. I also share some concerns that the vaccine rollout may be an immunological sledgehammer being used to crack a relatively harmless viral nut. But I am most concerned, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, that the absolutists have hi-jacked legitimate (and illegal) anti-lockdown movements to get across their message. Here are some arguments against the broadest claims of the absolutists.
No vaccine has been proved to work: while vaccines are not wholly responsible for improving health and reducing mortality across the world, they have played a significant role. Where are the diseases that were common and were killers in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations such as diptheria and whooping cough? Whatever happened to smallpox?
Vaccines are not safe and will kill you: nothing we introduce into our bodies is entirely safe and no medication can ever be declared completely safe. Anything that has a positive effect on our body may have an ill-effect. The humble aspirin can be lethal and paracetamol is highly to lethally toxic above the normal dose. Deaths attributed to vaccines do occur but how many people do we know, since childhood, who have been vaccinated and how many have died as a result or even had a bad reaction? For most the answer will be none.
Vaccines cause autism: The Lancet article by Andrew Wakefield (incidentally not himself an anti-vaxxer) where this claim regarding the triple vaccine is made was subsequently retracted. Wakefield was shown to have falsified his results and not to have declared several conflicts of interest including personal gain from lawyers acting against the company that produced the triple vaccine. The anti-vaxxers continue to produce numerous cases of where children who had a vaccine developed autism, or other health problems, and say ‘voila’. But they are guilty of two mistakes that plague pseudo-science: reverse causation (it happened therefore I know what caused it); and generalising from the particular (it happened so this must be what always happens).
Vaccines will change your DNA: this has recently arisen in the wake of the Pfizer vaccine which contains messenger RNA. In fact, no DNA is involved in the steps following the injection of a Pfizer vaccine. The RNA in the vaccine is used by our muscle cells to make an antibody that then attaches to and kills the coronavirus. RNA vaccines are probably safer than the conventional vaccines which introduce a fragment of the virus into your body.
Legitimate debate about genuine concerns that can be substantiated should be encouraged, including concerns about the COVID-19 vaccinations. False claims regarding the effects and ill-effects of vaccination programmes that are in the public domain should be countered and a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the issue of questioning COVID orthodoxy, especially by the UK government, should be abandoned.
Covid vaccines: an ethical critique
Niall McCrae
First do no harm, states the Hippocratic Oath. But are doctors adhering to this principle in the Covid-19 context? I spent eleven years on a NHS ethics committee, and four as a clinical trial manager, so I have a good working knowledge of ethical safeguards in medical research. Sadly, established standards appear to have been cast aside in the rush to vaccinate against a disease of little risk to fit and healthy people.
Modern medicine has developed as a balance of two ethical doctrines. The first, and arguably the most important, is deontology. This prioritises individual rights, preserving the sanctity of life. One patient should not be sacrificed for the benefit of others.
Utilitarianism, by contrast, is the pursuit of the greater good. While this concept is virtuous, in practice it has been exploited by totalitarian states. For example, in China, hearts, corneas, and kidneys of prisoners are harvested for organ transplant to deserving recipients. The greater good is not necessarily decided by the people at large, but by rulers with unchecked privilege and power. Several British government ministers and scientific advisors have conflicts of interest due to their private investment in companies profiting from the Covid crisis.
Prevention is better than cure. Vaccines have controlled if not eradicated dreaded infectious diseases (although perhaps insufficient credit is given to the improved living conditions that reduce prevalence of tuberculosis, which remains rife in Africa). I had vaccines in childhood, as have my daughters. I agree with Professor Roger Watson’s arguments against the extreme ideas of the anti-vaccine movement. But like Roger I am troubled by the political campaign to label anyone querying Covid-19 vaccines as an ‘anti-vaxxer’ – a term that demonises and incites hate.
Anybody has a right to know what is injected into their body, as do parents of young children. There would be something amiss if we didn’t ask about ingredients, possible side-effects and contra-indications. Furthermore, the creep of vaccination programmes is relentless, with children being inoculated against more and more diseases. This is a massive market for Big Pharma.
Covid-19 vaccination is a mass experimental trial. Governments gloss over the fact that long-term effects of the vaccines will not be known until 2023. The rapid vaccine development is hailed as a miracle of science, as a process that would normally take up to ten years has been achieved in less than one, but it is not possible to compress time.
Taking the vaccine is promoted as doing one’s duty as a citizen, for the benefit of society. But inevitably serious adverse events are occurring. While no causative link to the vaccines has been determined, hundreds have died in the UK alone within a few weeks of the jab. Some would argue that this is a price worth paying, but this is a reckless stance.
A cost-benefit assessment is made on treatment for life-threatening diseases such as cancer: cytotoxic drugs are a double-edged sword, attacking the tumour but with debilitating collateral damage. From a deontological perspective, no healthy person should be harmed by a vaccine for a condition of low risk. Yet many people who had the jab seem to wear the subsequent ill effects as a badge of honour. ‘At least that means it’s working’, I have heard someone say. Others (including the Queen) have remarked ‘I didn’t feel a thing’, as if the only hazard was the needle piercing the skin.
Sadly, awareness of the pros and cons of vaccination is poor in society. The so-called ‘anti-vaxxers’ are selective in the information they read and recite, but there is more danger in a populace that uncritically accepts an incompletely tested vaccine. Informed consent is crucial, but too many people are neither informed nor genuinely consenting. Much pressure is being applied by the authorities, and the majority are meekly complying.
We are amidst an information war, which the government is committed to winning. Legitimate concerns are being suppressed in the media and on the internet. I have been ‘fact-checked’ for telling inconvenient truths about the short-term adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines (the corrector couldn’t refute my claim, but labelled it ‘misleading’). This is not scientific but political activity.
Roger rightly fears that the overzealous vaccination drive will bolster anti-vaccine absolutists. But there is extremism on both sides, and governments are abusing their power by forcing people (directly or indirectly) to take a vaccine that they may not want or need. It is not certain that the vaccines are very effective, although the manufacturers have been safely inoculated from liability.
Taking a broader view, I am not persuaded that it is necessary for the masses to be vaccinated for a virus that is mostly within the capacity of their natural immune system to deter. But I wonder whether the vaccine is for Covid, or if Covid was really for the vaccine, as a vehicle for digital identity and surveillance. Utilitarianism reigns.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
