Why I don't get vaccinated
20210910
Today our local newspaper (Berner Zeitung), put out a request to learn why some people are refusing to partake of the free covid vaccinations. The journalist wants readers to submit their rationale, which he will present to a local expert for his judgement. The arguments (and presumably their refutation by the local egggspert) will then be published online and in the newspaper. Naturally the expert is anything but impartial, and will do his best to justify his position by shooting yours down in flames. It's you against the accredited expert, and he gets the last word. You'd have to be either a masochist or hopelessly optimistic to go for that deal.
So why would anyone refuse the vaccine, the journalist asks? After all, 1) it's free, 2) has only moderate side-effects, and 3) protects against severe sickness. Let's take these three "advantages" in turn. 1) That fact that it's free is hardly a reason to invoke a medical procedure which has been documented to cause a wide variety of serious health problems, including death. If I put my piss in a syringe and offered to inject it for free, I doubt I'd get many takers. Obviously the cost is a trivial consideration compared to the contents, so calling "free" an advantage is pretty lame. 2) The journalist's claim that it "has only moderate side-effects" proves only that he hasn't been paying attention to the documented serious health issues, including death, that many thousands of vaxxers have experienced. True, for most people, the side-effects are minor to negligible, but one could say the same of Russian Roulette. The media has even managed to feature what they can't fix, touting the minor side-effects as "proof that it is working." Some people will fall for just anything. Then there's 3) "protects against severe sickness." The vaxxers like to claim this, but there isn't a shred of proof. In fact, some experts explain in detail why just the opposite will be the case come the next flu season. It's interesting to note that the journalist doesn't venture to say that it prevents one from coming down with covid, though this is the usual reason for a vaccine. It's also interesting that the covid experts have decided that natural immunity (gained from having survived covid) is only good for 6 months, whereas for every other disease it is considered the best type of immunity, effective for life.
So why don't I get the vax? There's so many reasons, it's hard to know where to start. If I have to pick just one, I'll take the fact that it hasn't undergone any long-term testing. This is one that my daughter, a doctor, (plus many of her colleagues) agrees with. It is, explicitly, still experimental, meaning that everyone who takes it is part of the experiment. There are very sound reasons why vaccines are normally required to go through extensive trials lasting 7-15 years. These have gone through some 10 months of testing. Furthermore, the detailed test data, and even the ingredients, are proprietary and not available to anyone. Adding insult to injury, the new mRNA technology has never been tried on humans, and failed miserably in the few animal trials where it was tried.
When I consider all that, I have to wonder why anyone does get the vax. You'd have to be either very trusting, or very fearful. Way back in March 2020 our favorite fear monger (Dr. Fauci) himself published in a peer-reviewed study that covid-19 is no more deadly than a seasonal flu, so it's hard to see why anyone would be afraid. Sure, lots of old folks died, but the vast majority of them had one foot in the grave already, and covid just pushed them over the edge, something the flu does every year. So it's a good thing the flu basically disappeared in 2020; instead of the usual millions of cases, only a few hundred happened. One might be forgiven for suspecting that bog standard flu was systematically re-labeled covid.
