Thursday, July 22, 2021

Vaccines and us

We haven't received our Covid vaccines.  We are not antivaxers.   We have had our children vaccinated as a matter of course over the years.  And yet we haven't received the Covid vaccine.  There are many reasons for this in our thinking, but let me set the stage for you when it comes to our thinking.  What we bring to any discussion of a vaccine, and what is on our mind always where medications and vaccinations are concerned, is as follows. 

First, years ago we gave our second oldest son, who had a few health problems early on, an over the counter med when he was little. He ballooned up and broke out in a rash.  We asked his then-pediatrician about it. She insisted the reaction couldn't have been that particular medicine.  Reactions to that cold medicine do not look like that.  Therefore the next time he got sick, we gave him that medicine again.  Once again, he reacted the same way.  Once again she insisted that the side effects of that particular medication do not react in such ways.  We found a different doctor and stopped giving him that particular medicine.  He's had no such reactions since. 

Second, years ago after my mom was living with us, she went to get her annual flu shot.  We never got the flu shot because we seldom got the flu.  And I knew plenty who got the flu shot who ended up getting the flu.  So in our family, despite not being antivax, we passed each year on the flu shot.

Mom didn't, however, and received her shot.  That very night her shoulder went completely lame.  It ached and she was in much pain, being unable to use her shoulder where she received the shot.  We took her to the doctor the next day and asked how the shot could cause that.  He said it couldn't.  That is not a side effect of any flu shot.  We went to an expert, and the expert insisted the same thing, that it was merely a sudden flare up of severe arthritis.  I said that may be true, but the morning before her shot she didn't have any problems.  

True, years earlier she had something happen and to this day nobody knows what.  Doctors said it was everything from a stroke to shingles.  But since then, her shoulder and arm were generally back to normal until she had the flu shot that afternoon.  Nonetheless, they insisted the two were not connected.  It may have been a flare up owing to the condition she had some years earlier, but it was simply a coincidence that it became bad on that particular day.

Finally, my oldest son was on track to be a gourmet chef because of his love for - and abilities with - cooking.  He had done some basic education at a local community college owing to his white privilege.  Before he transferred, his doctor - wrongly - told him that to go to any university would require his vaccines be up to date, including his flu shot.  He explained we didn't get that shot normally, but the doctor - former doctor - pressed him.  So he, alone among all of us, got his first flu shot along with updating a couple other vaccines.  

A few months later we were eating at a restaurant and he began to choke.  We thought perhaps he was eating too fast.  He managed to get it down and my wife drove him home while the rest of us finished.   We thought no more of it.  Some months later, we had friends over and he planned on cooking a fine salmon dinner for us.  While bringing the dishes out to us on the deck, he looked like hell.  He face was swollen, he was having a difficult time breathing.  One of our friends was a nurse and she recognized immediately a severe food allergy reaction.  We were able to use  meds at hand to reduce the symptoms.  We then took him to the doctor and an allergist and they diagnosed him with a severe fish allergy.  Since we didn't eat fish that often unless it's Lent, it took us time to see this development.

We pointed out that he had never had anything close to a reaction to fish or any food.  We also pointed out that we first saw this only after he received that battery of vaccines at his doctor's insistence.  Nonetheless, they said these things were in no way connected.  There was no reason to think his sudden, and debilitating, food allergy is in any way connected to the vaccines.

So that's our experience.   Not once has anything gone wrong with us from getting vaccines.  We know this because every doctor, specialist and medical expert has insisted it hasn't.  Dumb, blind luck and cosmic coincidence, but no connection.   Causation and correlation after all. 

My mom has been unable to use her arm since then.  Furthermore, it was her inability to use her arm that led to her falling, which led to a near death emergency that, among other things, hastened her dementia as such medical crises often do.  

My oldest had to give up on a culinary career. No culinary school or restaurant would hire a chef who could die in the kitchen from simply smelling fish or fish ingredients.  He can't go to a random restaurant, but must call ahead to make sure they don't serve fish.  No trips to the beach, aquariums, or anything with the smell of fish in the air.  He can't be around if a coworker brings fish for lunch.  He can't even be in a Walmart supercenter if they are cleaning the seafood department, even if he stands on the other side of the store, without developing symptoms. 

Yet none of this is connected to vaccines, because the experts assure us they aren't.  We are not antivaxers, and have always made sure our boys were up to date with all of the essentials.  But we are also skeptical.  We are skeptical because nobody seemed the least bit interested in looking at even the possibility that, say, a modern flu shot could trigger a reaction they don't expect.  Even as, according to a BBC article a few years ago, food allergies are exploding exponentially since the 1990s, they're sure there is no connection.  More than that, they don't seem interested in even entertaining the possibility.

If that's the case with these, could it not be the case with the Covid vaccine?   We've known many who received their shots.  Most have had no major problems, only the usual shot reaction.  A few became sick, a couple very sick.  Two we know had emergencies and had to rush to the ER.  One has developed a blood clot.  

Then again, we know several who have tested positive for Covid.  To this day, only a couple had the slightest symptoms.  Most who were found to have Covid had no symptoms at all.  From younger to older, you wouldn't know they had anything.  Some looked healthier than I am while they had it.  

None of this is to say I recommend not getting the Covid vaccine.  We're still on the fence.  I'm not saying we never will, but this might explain why we're a bit hesitant.  And that's with vaccines in general.  With Covid, misinformation is an added problem, including the kind you find on social media.  The inconsistency of messaging that has defined the Covid era also doesn't help.  Plus it's impossible for me not to see that with Covid there might be medical considerations in what we are told, but you can't miss the politically motivated considerations that appear just as important.

28 comments:

  1. I'm far from being anti-vaxxer as well. All five of my kids were vaxxed when young. But with this particular "vax" I will wait until the long term testing and studies have been done and then ONLY when a vax has been developed without the use of aborted fetal cell tissues in any phase of its development. I disagree with the Vatican about it being moral to take the vax. As long as we continue to say I don't like taking these drugs with fetal tissue connections in it's development and still take them, then the drug companies will not have any incentive to change their ways. Why should they if we are willing to take them anyway? Yes I maybe risking my life by refusing to take the vax but I'm looking more to saving my soul than body.

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    1. There is the moral angle to be sure. I was shocked the Church came out so quickly on that, but I'll leave that to others. We're not against getting it, and we might. Though some Alabama doctor is running about saying sorry about your luck if you haven't, it's too late. So there is that.

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  2. As always, it's a matter of trade-offs. Your children are all under 30, so they do not benefit from the vaccine. With you and your wife, you each likely would benefit if your body mass index is over a certain figure. The trade-off might still be worth it for you even if it wasn't. This thing nearly killed the prime minister of Britain, and he's only two years older than you are.

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    1. For the boys we're less likely to push, though as adults it's on them (our youngest being the exception). My mom is too old, and we fear if she had the worst type of reactions we've seen, she wouldn't survive it, and we've seen too many with such reactions. For my wife and I, we're still watching and trying to work it out. We know of many of all shapes and sizes who have tested positive and come out more or less unscathed. We know of a couple severe reactions to the shots. We know a couple who have had bad reactions to Covid. I think if the reporting was a little more reliable and forthright, and not always with the feeling that they're telling us things only in certain ways based on the moment, we might be more likely to take the chance. But then, technically there is no reason to worry since, technically, we've never seen anyone in our family have a bad reaction to a vaccine, despite gnawing feelings to the contrary.

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  3. It seems ridiculous to have to qualify oneself as "not an anti-vaxxer" if you question anything to do with vaccines, and yet one must. I personally know several people who have had adverse reactions to regular vaccines, and over the years of having children the push for more and more has just gotten ridiculous. The latest push, pre-Covid, was for pertussis boosters (though you can't get the pertussis vaccine alone, it's always with diptheria and tetnus) for pregnant women. At first it was every 2 years, now it's EVERY pregnancy! I just refuse it at this point. I'm not even fully convinced the pertussis vaccine is super effective anyway since they switched in the 90's from whole cellular ingredients to a pertussis toxoid, or acellular ingredient.
    My sister married into a family with a medical exemption to vaccines because the DtaP would put their son in the hospital EVERY time he got it, but the doctor insisted as well that there was no correlation. They finally got a doctor to recognize it. Anyway, their family did end up with pertussis, but it was the fully vaccinated kid who brought it home. The problem is, people have experiences like this and their experiences are denied by the medical establishment, which dings their credibility. (Also, CDC link below for the Washington State pertussis outbreak of 2011. Vaccination rates were pretty high for recorded cases.) But I digressed again, mea culpa!
    I fully support those who want to get the vaccine, but I am adamant that one should not be coerced into taking an experimental vaccine if one has concerns. I would hope that is one point we could all agree on.
    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a1.htm
    "The vaccination status of patients was determined by review of medical records and by patient or parent report. Vaccination was considered up-to-date if the minimum number of doses by age had been received, as recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (2). Patients with invalid dose dates (e.g., date of dose preceding date of birth) were excluded from the vaccination status analysis. Individual doses were excluded if administered <14 days before symptom onset.

    Valid vaccination history was available for 1,829 of 2,006 (91.2%) patients aged 3 months–19 years. Overall, 758 of 1,000 (75.8%) patients aged 3 months–10 years were up-to-date with the childhood diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis (DTaP) doses. Receipt of Tdap was documented in 97 of 225 (43.1%) patients aged 11–12 years and in 466 of 604 (77.2%) patients aged 13–19 years. Estimated DTaP coverage in Washington among children aged 19–35 months was 93.2% for ≥3 doses and 81.9% for ≥4 doses in 2010; Tdap coverage in adolescents aged 13–17 years was estimated at 70.6% (3)."

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    1. Yes, the things we have to preface our opinions with nowadays are surprising. I fully support those who have gotten the vaccines, and we might. We're just leery because, as I said in my post, we've technically never had anyone in our family have a bad side effect, despite the gut feeling that they have. And in one case at least, that's been a life altering reaction that still hasn't happened.

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  4. This reminds me of a story about a woman caught in a flood. When the water reached her doorway, a boat pulled up and offered her a ride out. "No, I have faith in God; He will save me," she said. The waters kept rising, and soon the ground floor of her house was completely flooded. Another boat pulled up to the window of her second-floor bedroom and offered to rescue her, but her answer remained unchanged: "No, I have faith in God; He will save me." Finally, the woman was forced up onto her roof by the rising waters. A helicopter spotted her and begged her to let them fly her to safety. The woman refused in the same words as before.

    So the woman drowned.

    As she appeared before God to be judged, she asked, "Lord, I put my trust in you. Why didn't you save me?"

    God replied, "I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more did you need?"

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    1. I know the story, I used to use it in my ministry days. But I don't think it applies here. Our point isn't 'just trust God instead of medicine', it's that in each case I mention above, the medical community wasn't even interested in entertaining the possibility that any of these three reactions were related to the medications. Just cosmic coincidence each and every time.

      If that's the case with our little experiences, how do we know they're not doing the same with vaccines rushed into production (and as recently as last year, warned against being rushed into production)? Plus, I'm pretty sure there is more to Covid than simply the few stats they randomly mention at different times. I'm no medical doctor, but I have a gut feeling there is an X-Variable out there that we'll just say they haven't pinpointed yet that tells why many who get Covid don't even know they have it, while others suffer and die. With that, we're waiting for more info, and the 'it's too late you're going to die' threats on the news or bribes of lottery winnings aren't going to change our hesitancy.

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    2. It's your choice. People sometimes have reactions to vaccines; they sometimes contract salmonella or E. coli from fruits or vegetables. I have met an Orthodox priest whose son, still a child, died when the family car spun out of control on their way to or from church. And we all know of examples like George Burns, who drank and smoked and lived to be 100. I suspect we have all heard of stories of people who died in accidents BECAUSE they were wearing seat belts.

      I got my first shot on December 30. That same day, about 3 hours earlier, my aunt died of covid. The long-term results of her not being vaccinated (it was not available in time where she lived) are clear.

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    3. That helicopter story is a little off in this context. Dave isn't saying "I don't need the helicopter, I have God," he's say "I appreciate Helicopters, I've used them in the past, I just have doubts about this particular helicopter. "
      Maybe Dave is right, maybe he's wrong, but either way, the helicopter story doesn't apply in this context.

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    4. I'm not saying helicopters are perfectly safe. I am saying that rooftops are less safe when the flood comes.

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    5. Considering:

      -The fact that the vaccines are experimental and were developed in record time.
      -The fact that reports of complications have went through the roof.
      -The fact that it is impossible to determine the long term effects of the vaccines at this time.
      -The fact that COVID-19 has a very high survivability rate except among the oldest and the most infirm.

      and for Dave's case in particular:

      -The fact that his family members have already had complications that seem likely to be vaccine related.

      And it is not clear at all whether it is safer to take the vaccine or not take it.

      People die from COVID. In some rare cases even relatively young people who would not seem to be at risk. Others recover it from it with no problem (even people like my 94 year old grandmother; in fact she had less symptoms than I had.) It's folly to say that it is certain that getting one of these vaccinations will save your life or will make you safer. Maybe it will, but there is also strong evidence that it may not.

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    6. If there is "strong evidence", you have yet to present it. Seriously. You present doubt, not evidence. A bad reaction to one drug or even to one vaccine is not "strong evidence" of reactions to ALL drugs or ALL vaccines; it kinda makes a difference what you're taking. Unless you know something about the chemical or biological similarity between past reactions and a current vaccine, that's no more a serious objection than me concluding "all sandwiches are bad" because I have twice gotten food poisoning from sandwiches (one from a deli, one from a Subway, both of which are now closed).

      There are bad medicines. Thalidomide comes to mind. For that matter, there are bad cops and bad priests -- both of which, I am sad to conclude, appear at a higher frequency and do more cumulative harm than bad vaccines. There are bad doctors, bad nurses, bad teachers, bad mechanics, bad lawyers, bad shopkeepers, bad farmers, bad ranchers, bad pilots, bad drivers -- you name the profession, and it is possible to find anecdotes about people doing the job in an incompetent or even criminal way. The existence of these anecdotes is not "strong evidence" about anything other than perhaps the need to LOOK for strong evidence.

      Doubt is easy. Research is hard. That's probably why there a lot more doubters than there are researchers.

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    7. Just to be clear, of course you have a right to doubt, and Dave has a right to avoid the vaccines. For that matter, my landlady about 15 years ago had a right to refuse to have a coat of primer put on her rental property before the latex paint was applied. Having a legal and even moral right to do something does not guarantee it is a good idea.

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    8. Just to be clear, we continue to live more or less quasi-quarantine. We've not been out to eat, we've not bought tickets to the OSU Football season, no county fairs or needless outings. We wear masks and more or less, with only a few cases of loosening the restrictions, continue as last year. Precisely because we haven't been vaccinated, and my mom can't be vaccinated who lives with us. Remember, these are not preventative vaccines. They are more treatments, meant to help you fight off COVID if you get it. Because of our experience with vaccines, however, you can see why we're weighing the options.

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    9. It doesn't spread in outdoor air.

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    10. They say and don't. Remember when the January 6th riots happened, they said the gathering could prompt a super-spreader. They likewise are suggesting the July 4th celebrations this year could be behind some of the spiking. Like I've said, consistency of messaging has not been a defining characteristic of the Covid era.

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  5. Doctors aren't actuaries. Some of their advice is misconceived because they do not think in probabilities.

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    1. Please elaborate, this is an interesting line of thought. I'm curious about the details. You may be on to something

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  6. Thankfully I already got and recovered from COVID-19, so the question of whether or not to get vaccinated didn't even come up for me.

    But even if I didn't have any immunity to the disease, all the double-talk around the vaccinations would still have caused me to avoid them. Just the fact that they are referred to as "the vaccine" in spite of being separately developed and using different techniques is a good sign that the facts about their effectiveness doesn't really matter. Then you have the way that everything is always stacked in favor vaccination over anything else. For example, when I say "I don't intend to use an experimental vaccination, since I already have antibodies" I often get the response "but natural vaccination probably fades over time, unlike vaccination" (even though studies consistently show that natural immunity is lasting and they are openly talking about annual booster shots) or "but that was to the original strain of COVID-19 and as such won't provide any protection to the Delta Variant, which is why you need to get vaccinated" (even though all of the vaccines were developed before the Delta variant even existed.)

    You also have the shameless way that number games are played. People will say things like "the vast majority of deaths over the last month in this county were from the unvaccinated" in a county which has deaths in the single digits (or sometimes 0! though I suppose 0 is in a sense "the vast majority of" zero). They will make a big deal about no recently reported cases of people being infected with the vaccine, ignoring that the CDC stated they will not record cases from vaccinated people starting May 1. But on the flip side the catastrophic increase in reported complications from vaccines is dismissed as "but complications are still rare overall." (By "catastrophic increase" I mean "more than three times as many deaths reported in 2021 as in 2010-2020 combined.")

    It's obvious that for the media the starting point is that everyone must be vaccinated, and all facts are arranged to argue towards that conclusion.

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    1. I've said that if anything defines the Covid era, consistency of messaging is not it. Not that Covid isn't serious. I just don't know how serious or what the details are, or for that matter, exactly what is or isn't going on with the vaccines. In one year they've taught me that of all the considerations behind Covid messaging, medicine and health are merely a couple among many.

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    2. "It's obvious that for the media the starting point is that everyone must be vaccinated, and all facts are arranged to argue towards that conclusion."

      Sounds a lot like the media's starting point of CO2 and man's production of same is to blame for global warming, and all the facts are arranged to argue towards that conclusion.

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  7. https://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-allergy/fish-allergy

    Fish allergies commonly develop in adulthood.

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    1. Yeah, his allergist said it happens, though why isn't known. I think had it not been both him - sudden allergy after his vaccines - and my mom - sudden crippling arthritis after her flu vaccine, we might be less inclined to be concerned. One or the other could just be cosmic coincidence as they said. Both? Especially my mom, where the impact was the same day. And if that is the case, then what about Covid vaccines?

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    2. You said several months separated the shots from the allergic reaction.

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    3. Well, that was the first time we noticed it. Again, fish was never a big part of our menu. He had something happen with eating before that, but we dismissed it and can't be sure it was connected. But that was the first time we remember him having fish after the shots. And with my mom, again that was the very night. And that was years ago. And she's not used her shoulder or arm since. That's an awful lot of bad timing, though it does who why I also don't gamble.

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  8. Yeah, the fun of medicine. I had a coworker who expressed something similar once where he got very ill from a flu shot (ironically it wasn't flu-like symptoms). I'm not entirely sure of the logic, but the body is such a massively complex machine I don't doubt him or you.

    Fun random fact. There's a theory out there... let's call it the "boredom" theory. Basically that after thousands and thousands of years of mankind living in less than sanitary conditions, our immune system had become honed to deal with a battery of attacks.

    Now that we've developed things like sanitation and vaccines, our immune system is now "bored" and allergies are on the rise because said immune system essentially decides to attack anything since it has nothing better to do.

    Dunno how proven it is yet but a fun theory to think about and would fit a lot of the current data on hand.

    I still hate your son had to give up his culinary dreams. Although... with food allergies on the rise, maybe he can see about a restaurant designed to cater to allergic people.

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    1. We told him to consider something along those lines. But it reminded me of a MASH episode where Charles (the erudite upper class surgeon) performs feats of magic on the operating table to save a soldier. The only thing he couldn't save was a slight ability in a couple of his fingers, but nothing major. When he tells the soldier, the soldier breaks down in tears. Charles says it's only a couple fingers with slightly diminished dexterity, but he's alive! Yes, the soldier says, and he was a world class concert pianist.

      My son thinks on that episode a lot. For my part, I sometimes think medical science is not necessarily an exact science. I sometimes think we people are a little more varied and complex than a one size fits all works with. Plus, let's face it, it isn't as if there's not reason to think more than just medicine has gone into the thinking behind how Covid and its solutions have been presented.

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