Why is the COVID Vaccine Being Rushed to Market

Are Vaccines Safe or is There a Link to Autism
Introduction
The rapidity with which the novel coronavirus believed to cause COVID-19 overtook the world caused alarm among leaders and media leading to an urgent demand for an emergency vaccine. Because vaccines typically take years if not decades to develop, manufacture and test, the rollout of a COVID vaccine seemed dubious at best. But as Arnold (2020) points out, scientists had no choice—they had to implement atypical methods to speed up the process: it would be the first time in history that a new disease was identified and a vaccine for it was developed at the same time that the initial outbreak persisted. Scientists quickly began rolling out a variety of vaccines that worked differently in the body—but not without cutting corners here and there (Arnold, 2020). The fact of the matter is that creating and testing vaccines safely takes time and money, but today people are lining up like human guinea pigs, unsure of what to expect as the vaccine industry essentially conducts beta testing on the human populace. Yet, this is even only just one of the major obstacles involved in inoculating the public against COVID-19. Not only is there the challenging of safely transporting and storing vaccines once they have been developed but also the challenge of convincing a wary and skeptical public that it is in their best interests to be vaccinated. This paper addresses the challenges involved in getting a vaccine safely to the public and explains why, given the nature of the situation, the rushed approach to addressing COVID may be a signal that the world needs to slow down and moderate its course of action lest it do more harm than good.
Challenges
Convincing the world that vaccines are safe and effective seems like it should not be that difficult to do. If vaccines work and are safe, why are so many people still skeptical and fearful of them? Rahul (2020) explains the history of vaccines, how they work and why they work. However, it is author Seth Mnookin (2011) who really addresses the challenge of convincing a skeptical public. His book The Panic Virus: The True Story behind the Vaccine Autism Controversy looks at how the public’s anxiety about and disbelief in vaccines may have originated.
Mnookin (2011) provides significant insights into the history of diseases like smallpox. About 3,000 years ago in 1350 BC the very first smallpox epidemic shook the world. It killed off millions of people and wiped out entire civilizations, such as the Inca and Aztec empires. It started with a fever and then pustules led to permanent scarring. Smallpox was contagious and spread like wildfire. People were around one another so it was easy to catch. Today, people are practicing social distancing and wearing face masks and trying not to spread germs, so that is a big difference. People are listening to what they hear on the media. Yet that was not always the case. Smallpox hurt a lot of people, including Queen Mary the 2nd of England, King Nagassi of Ethiopia, King Louis of Spain, and the Emperor of Japan (Mnookin, 2011). What scientists eventually figured out was that inoculating against a disease by exposing oneself to it could help one’s body to become resistant to it. That is the idea behind the milkmaids who never got the pox, even though they came in contact with cowpox blisters while milking cows. Scientists theorized that the exposure to the virus in the cowpox gave the milkmaids immunity. That is where the concept of vaccines comes from.
An investigative reporter named Lea Thompson saw vaccines a little differently, however. In her view, vaccinations were linked to neurological damage. She interviewed various people, including doctors and others, and put together a show that won an Emmy. She raised a lot of questions about vaccines that upset the medical establishment, which believed she had misconstrued the words of various doctors and researchers. Mnookin argued that Thompson simply wanted to sensationalize the vaccination story and turn it into a conspiracy theory that could attract attention from the public. Nonetheless, Thompson’s presentation opened a veritable floodgate of new skeptics and critics coming to the fore to question vaccinations and to associate vaccines with autism.
In spite of Thompson and other critics, vaccines have continued to be developed and used—but they have always been developed over time. The COVID vaccines currently being rushed to market have not been produced within the usual time table of safe vaccine development. The justification for this rush has been that COVID is such a risk or threat to human life. Of course, with most people who get coronavirus essentially being asymptomatic, it only makes it all the harder to justify the rush to vaccine skeptics. Much of the public is already upset of the lockdowns that have put tens of millions of people out of work, that have caused suicide rates to skyrocket, and that have caused mental health to plummet. They are now doubly skeptical of the thought that a safe vaccine has been developed within a short amount of time.
Developing a safe vaccine is just one of the challenges facing scientists. Another is transporting the vaccine to the public (Barath, 2020). For instance, the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, which limits transportation and storage options. Other researchers have sought to overcome this issue. As Barath notes, researchers at University of Texas at Austin developed a thin sheet that can preserve vaccines and other forms of medicine without refrigeration. This development may be the solution to refrigeration or storing issues, as this sheet could help the vaccines to withstand regular temperatures for months. The vaccines could thus be shipped by mail so that they are distributed to developing nations as well. The film can be consumed orally, too, which means the vaccine does not have to be administered through a needle. The film can be developed quickly and affordably.
In the end, these challenges are what the world is facing at large. Some of them have been overcome—such as the issue of transporting the vaccine. But the question of safety still remains, not only because of the short amount of time in which these vaccines have been developed but also because of the skepticism that remains due to the reporting of people like Thompson. No matter how many studies are produced or published by the medical establishment, the skepticism continues. Even though many are now getting the first COVID vaccines every day, many more are hesitant.
Risks
None of this really alleviates the fears that many have over the safety of vaccinations, however. Reports like the one by Bowman (2004) are meant to provide the public with comfort and a feeling of security; the problem is that the public distrusts these kind of reports and the studies they cite just as much as it distrusts vaccines. Why? The anecdotal evidence and the evidence the public gathers through direct observation tells quite a different story. The amount of children with autism has surged in recent decades, and everyone can see it. Autism was relatively unknown before the dozens of vaccines (often mandated by public schools) began being given to children at very young ages. So when a study says there is no correlation between vaccines and autism, it is natural and understandable that people should remain skeptical. With social media today offering people a power of connectivity never before seen, it is easier for individuals to share their stories with others around the world. Those stories are not insignificant in the minds of people, even if Facebook censors and “fact checkers” state that they should be. The reality is that vaccines are seen by many as a risk, regardless of what authors like Bowman (2004) have to say. For every author like Bowman (2004) there is another two, three or four families with a story to tell regarding their own experiences raising autistic children. For every study conducted to show no link between vaccines and autism there is another family with autistic children entering one’s social sphere—and that raises worry and concern among parents with small children. No parent wants to feel responsible for harming his or her child. That is why a great deal of fear remains and is unlikely to go away, especially with a rushed vaccine being brought to market with limited testing.
Solution
Many people just want their lives back and will be willing to submit to a vaccination even if it has not been very well tested. If the FDA approves it for emergency use, they are willing to take the risk because they want life to go back to the way it was before. However, even Dr. Fauci is saying that life may never go back to the way it was.
Still, there is going to be a great deal of worry and skepticism so long as this rushed rate of getting the vaccine to the public continues. This is a problem and does not facilitate trust. Few people are actually at risk of dying from COVID. For that reason, it makes more sense to roll out the vaccine more slowly and more carefully. The lockdowns should be lifted and the face mask mandates stopped, as all they do is add to the tension and fear and anxiety. The more responsible approach to handling the COVID crisis is to, first, educate the public about what is really going on. The second thing to do is to give the people more choice about the matter so that they do not adapt a position of resistance just out of a sense of anxiety.
The first thing to do is to raise everyone’s health literacy in a responsible and respectful way. That means using media like what the American Academy of Pediatrics (2020) has put out on its website. This media includes numerous resources that can be used to educate the public about what vaccines are and how they work. This media can be emailed or given face to face to people who visit their doctor. This is a process of education that has to be done. When things are rushed, it is skipped and people are fearful and skeptical as a result.
There are also media from the CDC (2017), such as press releases that describe for parents the purpose and reasoning behind a flu vaccine. These can be helpful in raising health literacy in a responsible manner. It is better if people can get this information and process it on their own and talk about it with others. It is better if they are given the right and the choice to decide for themselves because ultimately they are the ones who have to live with that decision. Whether there are any negative side effects of vaccinations, is another matter, and since it is one person’s body and every person has a right to decide what to do with his own body, the best thing for the medical establishment to do is to try to educate people.
Rushing things out and not allowing people the right to talk about their own experiences only makes the public more distrustful of the government, the media, and the medical establishment. Since COVID is not the Black Plague it is important to keep in mind the fears and insecurities of people. They are never going to accept what is pushed on them. To do this right, the government should be mindful of the people’s need for information, their need for education, and their need for society. Denying the public any of these can do more harm than good.
Reflection and Conclusion
I chose this topic because it is of great concern to many people. I myself feel that vaccines are necessary and important, but many are scared and I can empathize with them. I would be scared too, or at least nervous if I had not done the research for this paper. Having investigated the matter, however, and having read Mnookin’s book and what the CDC (2017) has put out in its press release along with what the American Academy of Pediatrics has published on its website, it all has shown me that I have nothing to fear.
The problem that others have is that they are not seeing this information—so instead of pushing them along and calling them names and treating their fears as though they were idiotic these people should feel respected. After all, if you were worried that something someone was going to put inside you might harm you or your children you would not want to be treated like an idiot. It is a perfectly legitimate concern to have and no one should be made to feel stupid for having it.
Thus, the best course of action for the government to take is to allow people have access to this information and to stop banning free speech on the Internet. When a doctor makes a claim about COVID that runs contrary to what Dr. Fauci says, it should not be removed from YouTube because that only makes people more suspicious—as though the government had something to hide.
People need time to make up their own minds. Because COVID is not causing bodies to drop in the streets like was first feared, there is time. There is time for people to talk, to consider, to read and to come to an educated decision about what is best for them, for their families, and for their communities. People have to be respected rather than rushed into doing something that goes against their conscience.
Just think for example—what if Thompson is right after all? What if there is some link that the medical establishment cannot verify because it is under pressure from the vaccine industry to say nothing about it? What if there are numerous doctors the world over who have raised alarms about vaccines yet their voices are never heard because Big Tech and Big Media are governed by the same people who run the vaccine industry? Overlapping boards of directorates are not unheard of after all….
Now imagine you take your one year old in for a routine vaccination and then you begin to notice signs of neurological damage….Are you going to be able to forgive yourself as a parent? Put yourself in the shoes of people who do not have the same understanding as you. Think about their fears and anxieties. Help them to understand by sharing the other side of the story with them—but never force them to do something they are not ready to do. America is about tolerating different views. Were COVID as bad as the Black Plague it might be another story—but it is not. Most people who get coronavirus are asymptomatic—meaning they have no signs or symptoms of even being sick. There is time to talk about this and time to educate the right way.
Works Cited
American Academy of Pediatrics (2020). Immunizations. Retrieved from https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/immunizations/pages/immunizations-home.aspx
Arnold, C. (2020). Race for a vaccine. New Scientist, 245(3274), 44-47. Doi:10.1016/s0262-4079(20)30600-x
Barath, H. (2020). Vaccine transport. Scientific American, 322(6), 13.
Bowman, D. H. (2004). Federal analysis concludes vaccines, autism not linked. Education Week, 23(38), 11.
CDC. (2017). CDC Study Finds Flu Vaccine Saves Children’s Lives. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0403-flu-vaccine.html
Mnookin, S. (2011). Panic virus. The true story behind the vaccine autism controversy.
Rahul, N. W. (2020). Vaccine: A solution or a challenge? A public opinion about vaccine in 2020. Journal of Advanced Research, 11, 10-16.