the truth behind the most common vaccine fears
“The vaccine feels rushed.”
While vaccines have traditionally taken years to develop and release to the public, scientists had already been studying coronaviruses and working on mRNA vaccine technology for years when COVID appeared in 2020.
Because of this, they were able to create a fast, reliable, and universal vaccine while meeting the same high approval standards the FDA has for all vaccines.
“I’m Worried about Long-term side effects.”
In the history of vaccines, all long-term side effects – rare as they are – have always occurred within six weeks of a dose. Even more important, they have never occurred in an mRNA vaccine, which what the Pfizer and Moderna shots are.
The mRNA is quickly broken down by the body after just a few days; the harmless spike proteins they prompt the body to create are destroyed by the immune system in just a few weeks. There is no logical reason any side effect would occur after this point, when the vaccine has been naturally cleared from the body.
“I already had COVID so I’ve got immunity and don't need to get vaccinated.”
Recent studies show unvaccinated people who’ve recovered from an earlier bout with COVID are twice as likely to get reinfected as those who are vaccinated. Any immunity they’d gained appears to be much less effective against a different variant of the virus, such as Delta.
The good news: a previously infected person gets an incredible boost of immune cells after just their first dose of the vaccine, even more than what an uninfected person gets from two shots.
“I’m concerned the vaccine will affect my fertility.”
No vaccine – including those for COVID – has ever been shown to impact male or female fertility, or cause problems getting pregnant. During the trials, the same percentage of women who had been vaccinated as those who received placebos got pregnant after having been vaccinated. [What is a placebo?] The sperm counts and ovarian reserves of vaccinated and unvaccinated men and women were monitored, and there was no difference in either before or after the vaccine.
However, many unvaccinated pregnant women have been dying from the Delta variant, so doctors have been strongly urging young women – those pregnant or trying to become pregnant – to get vaccinated.
“People are getting sick and dying from the vaccine.”
This is false. More than 170 million Americans – including 45 million age 65 and up – have gotten vaccinated so far. In an average year, around 0.9% of the U.S. population dies; one would expect a similar rate among those who were vaccinated. Some of those deaths would occur soon after vaccination, but that does not mean they were caused by the vaccine.
Still, the CDC keeps track of these deaths and illnesses through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and investigate to determine whether a common health issues are being caused by the vaccine. To ensure people don't think the CDC is hiding anything, they keep VAERS open to the public, but this also allows people to mistakenly claim reported illnesses or deaths post-vaccination as having been caused by the vaccine.
“I Heard it will change my DNA.”
A person's DNA is the unique genetic code that makes them who they are. It includes instructions to create the proteins which are the building blocks of everything the body needs to create. Rather than reading those DNA instructions directly, the body uses mRNA to make a copy of them, then assembles proteins according to that copy.
The mRNA in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines have no need to access, let alone alter, your DNA; they already contain the necessary instructions, so instead they go directly to the ribosomes inside your cell, where the spike proteins that have the same shape of the COVID virus are assembled. The body then breaks down and gets rid of the mRNA from the vaccine, as those instructions are no longer needed.
“The vaccines have a microchip in them that will track me.”
Microchip rumors began in March of 2020 after Bill Gates predicted we will have to show a “digital certificate” similar to a negative test or proof of vaccination once vaccines became readily available. (This is indeed what happened.)
A blogger mistakenly thought Gates was referring to an initiative by the Gates Foundation to solve the problem of keeping track of which immunizations a person without a doctor or good medical records has had. They hoped adding a special dye to vaccines would leave a permanent mark in the skin, similar to a tattoo, but in practice it never actually worked.
The blogger suggested Gates would actually try to “track” vaccinated persons by implanting microchips at the time of vaccination; however, it would be impossible to do so without the person getting “microchipped” being very aware of what was happening.
