I have been leery about getting the vaccine due to various things I have read and heard but as noted below my new employer would like me to get it. So I reached out to my college girlfriend (from the 1980s). She went on to get her PHD in virology and has been teaching and researching for many years at a University in New York. I do not know her politics but I doubt very much that her reply is anything but science based from her knowledge and personal involvement in the research. I am now leaning toward getting the vaccine. I have not totally decided and plan to talk to my new doctor soon to get their opinion/advice. I just moved from Michigan to Oregon recently and have yet to meet with my new doctor. I am interested in the Campfire's thoughts about Jennifer's info, which she provided over the past couple days.
Jennifer, I would like to get your input regarding this "vaccine". I have not gotten it nor has my wife. We have read many negative reports (including some people dying after receiving it) and it really seems to me to be totally politicized. I read this article that you may have seen. If not, I would love to have your feedback on it as well as anything else you would like to share regarding the safety, efficacy and need for me to get the vaccine. My employer is kind of pushing me to get it since all the other employees have done so and if I am to have exposure to our tasting room customers they would like me to be vaccinated.
https://www.deconstructingconventional.com/post/18-reason-i-won-t-be-getting-a-covid-vaccineThanks, Brian
Hello Brian,
I've been thinking hard on what to write. I decided to tell you about my experience with the covid vaccine. I can also touch on a few topics in the article you sent me.
I'll start my story about 4 years ago. I was at a conference, the International Conference on Antiviral Research, and I heard a talk about the Eco Health Alliance that found many coronaviruses in bats in caves in China. The main point of the talk was that some of these viruses were already able to grow in human cells and there was potential for another pandemic like SARS. When news came out in Jan 2020 that a coronavirus was causing pneumonia in China, I felt a sense of dread. This could be bad, really bad. It's heartbreaking that this virus has swept across the world and killed so many people.
During the lockdown in spring 2020, I worked from home and studied everything I could about this virus. I followed the research about the vaccines. I learned that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was going to be tested at my university. Wow! One day I got an email asking for volunteers for the covid vaccine clinical trial. I thought about it for a few hours, then called. I was eligible for the study, and I got my first shot in early August. I felt pretty ragged the next day, which made me think I got the vaccine and not the placebo. I got the second shot on Aug. 27, and again I felt rotten for a day.
The main reason I got the vaccine was for my family. If anyone got covid, I wanted to be protected so I could help them. Luckily, my parents didn't catch this virus -- Phew! However, my daughter tore her Achilles tendon and I had to fly to see her and help her after surgery. Being vaccinated made it possible for me to travel safely and take care of her.
I was a little nervous to get an experimental vaccine. Like the article mentioned, there is a thing called "antibody dependent enhancement", or ADE. Sometimes antibodies can make an infection worse instead of protecting you. This happened with a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and with a vaccine for dengue virus. I am fully aware of this risk, but I felt it was less of a risk than serious covid. In fact, my old boss at Stanford, Dr. Ann Arvin, wrote a long article to Nature about the risk of ADE from any vaccine, including the covid vaccines. I read it and was scared! To my relief, no one who received the covid vaccines has shown any signs of ADE.
Another worry I had was would the vaccine work? Some viral diseases do not have vaccines, despite trying hard. As you know, there is no vaccine for HIV. Same for the common cold. I had to wait and see if the Pfizer vaccine would work against covid. Every week I used an app on my phone to report any possible symptoms of covid. I never had any of these signs, so I was encouraged. I still report on the app every Thursday and will continue for 2 years. I also had a few blood draws, which would tell whether I had antibodies to the vaccine and/or to the virus. This would show whether I got an asymptomatic infection. You can imagine how interested I was to hear the reports in the news about how well the Pfizer vaccine worked to protect people from covid. I even watched the live webinar of the ACIP committee meeting where the vaccine results were shown publicly for the first time. I was one of those data points! I read the New England Journal of Medicine article about the clinical trial and felt so proud that I was part of that study. The first author on that paper, Dr. Stephen Thomas, is the chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at my university! Dr. Thomas is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Army and helped fight the Ebola outbreak in 2014. He was also the first author on the most recent NEJM paper that showed the Pfizer vaccine is effective in children. That study was also done here.
Finally, in December 2020, I got a call from the clinical trial staff telling me that I had received the vaccine, not the placebo. Hurray! That meant I was immune all along. It feels like my superpower, a shield against this nasty virus. It turns out that the vaccine is more effective than anyone predicted, over 95%. We are so lucky that this virus can be stopped by a vaccine. We are also lucky that this virus doesn't seem to hurt children too much. I'm grateful for both things.
This virus has my total respect. I never want to get it. Even if I got over the worst of it, I'm afraid I would lose my sense of smell. This would be tragic for me because I love to cook and drink wine. I'm also worried about heart and brain damage from this virus. I'm on a masters rowing team, so I need a good cardiovascular system. I also use my brain for my job, so I need to keep all the neurons I still have. It makes me so sad to think of all the people who died from this virus and who are still suffering from its aftereffects. In fact, my mother-in-law died of covid last June. She was 94, lived in a nursing home, and died alone. We could not visit her due to the lockdown. We couldn't have a funeral (one is planned for July 2021) because we were not allowed to travel or be in groups. I was close to her and miss her every day.
I have not heard of anyone dying of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. I follow the reports closely, and I work with Dr. Thomas, so I would probably hear about a serious event like that. We know that people are dying every day of covid.
The virus may mutate, and we may need booster vaccines. For now, the current versions are working great. I think it's exciting that mRNA can be used for new vaccines when they are needed. The idea isn't new. BioNTech was working on an mRNA vaccine for the flu and had contracted with Pfizer to make it in their factory. When covid erupted, they changed their priority to the covid mRNA vaccine. The sequence for the covid vaccine was quickly decided based on research that was done in 2016 for the SARS and MERS coronaviruses. We are incredibly lucky that all this background work was in place. The U.S. government did not fund this project between BioNTech and Pfizer. The Trump administration made the wise choice to give Pfizer a purchase contract for millions of doses at a set price -- if it was approved by the FDA and ACIP.
One of the most ironic things about this vaccine, in my opinion, is that much of the research on mRNA was done by Kati Kariko, a Hungarian immigrant who worked at Princeton University for years. She couldn't get grants from NIH, she couldn't get promoted with tenure, and she barely hung on to her job as a research associate. She is slightly famous now, but way too late. She raised a tall, beautiful daughter, Susan Francia, who became an Olympic rower with a gold medal. I've met Susan several times (I'm a huge fan) but never knew her mother was a scientist. I never would have dreamed that Susan's mom would make the key discoveries that made the covid vaccines possible. How cool is that.
You see I have multiple personal connections with the covid vaccine. It seems that the more people who are vaccinated, the better off we will all be. We can be together safely, travel, care for each other, go back to the office, go to concerts, taste wine, and beat this sucker. I hope my story gives you some useful info and things to ponder. Let me know if you have more questions. Best, Jennifer
Jen, Thank you so much for your considered reply. I meant to also ask if you had heard about this apparently knowledgeable and respected scientist's concern about this particular vaccine. I watched a video he did and it sure made me think that I should not get this vaccine. Thoughts?
https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/Hi Brian,
I had time to watch parts of the interview with Geert vanden Bossche. His main point is that vaccinating people in the midst of a pandemic is risking the selection of immune escape variants. He believes this risk is too high, and so vaccination must stop.
I can give you some brief comments on this idea, which represent a mainstream viewpoint. His opinion is not shared widely.
Dr. vanden Bossche (I'll call him GVB) knows a lot about the immune system and vaccines. His theory is based in biology -- virus evolution under selection from the immune system. He appears to have imagined a plausible scenario: if many people get the vaccine, this is selection pressure on the virus (when it is circulating widely) to evolve. I agree that this is biologically possible. But I don't agree that it is likely to happen.
There are several reasons why I disagree with GVB about vaccines putting pressure on the virus to mutate.
The virus is mutating the most in people who are not vaccinated. The variants that arose did so in the absence of vaccination. People who lack immunity to this virus experience a high viral load during covid. High levels of virus replication are the conditions where mutations arise.
People who received the vaccine or recovered from covid have strong immune responses that will limit virus replication when they are exposed to it. Since the virus can't replicate very much in an immune person, there is less opportunity for it to mutate.
Both the vaccine and infection with the virus produce strong T cell and NK cell responses, not just antibodies. T cells and NK cells are ready to pounce when the virus lands in the body again. This stops the virus from growing in an immune person, even if it's a new variant.
Giving the vaccine to as many people as possible is our best chance at stopping the virus from mutating. Every nonimmune person is an open playing field for this virus to try new mutations.
Allowing people to become infected means that many will die and the virus will mutate much more.
Vaccinating people will save lives and prevent the virus from mutating.
Many people are concerned about the virus mutating to escape immunity, either from covid or the vaccine. There are teams monitoring this situation all over the world. In the U.S. and Israel, where vaccines started earliest, doctors tracked covid infection in four groups: 1) nonimmune people, 2) people who had recovered from covid, 3) people who got the vaccine, and 4) people who recovered from covid AND got the vaccine. Everyone in group 4 had the highest immunity. Group 3 was next best, group 2 was pretty good. Group 1 had no protection. Some of the people in this study were exposed to covid (they worked in hospitals) and had tiny amounts of virus in their noses. Only people in group 1 got sick. People in groups 2, 3, and 4 didn't catch covid, didn't shed virus from their noses, didn't infect anyone else, and never knew they brushed off the infection. Some of the viruses were the new London variant, but the vaccine or prior infection protected them just as well.
I am so pleased to see that covid is waning in the U.S.. It could come roaring back, especially where fewer people are vaccinated (Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, etc.). The more people who are immune, the less chance the virus has to cause trouble or mutate.
I hope I answered your questions.
Jennifer
Jennifer, thanks again for your time and answers. I was going to ask if I already had Covid (I have no idea if that is the case or not) should I bother to get the vaccine but it looks like you already answered that by saying people in group 4 (those who had already contracted and recovered from Covid but who had also subsequently received the vaccine) had the highest immunity from getting Covid again.
I know you are busy but can you answer this additional question? Which vaccine is best? Moderna, Pfizer or BioNTech? Should I steer clear from any or all they all equally safe and effective?
Great to hear from you and I do so appreciate your expertise and am happy that you are well. Brian
Hi Brian,
The coronavirus has many genes that help it avoid the immune system, so natural infection does not produce as good an immune response as the vaccine.
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are equally good. The Pfizer vaccine is a joint venture with BioNTech, so those are the same vaccines. I think these vaccines are better than the J&J or Astra Zeneca vaccines, but any vaccine is better than none! Jennifer
