The Risks And Benefits Of The Vaccine(S: Fill & Download for Free

Most of the childhood diseases for which we vaccinate are now rare, and people don't have first-hand experience of how truly horrendous they are. And the chances of actually catching and dying from them are now small. Vaccination has become a victim of its own success. This happened in the 1950's with the ill-fated malaria eradication program: {"Malaria is not a problem here", "We have other priorities", etc.} I once had a medical book "Fevers in Children" (pub. 1939) that would make you weep: "Panic stricken and desperate, the child rises up, but this only serves to exhaust her more…." (diphtheria, which used to be a rite of passage for children, and killed ~15,000/year) Whooping cough killed 1 in 200 children in 1900, and cause a lot of chronic disease.Antivaxxers have greatly exaggerated the dangers of vaccination. Our present vaccines are amongst the safest of all medical interventions. About as safe as brushing your teeth or cutting your toenails, and safer than riding a bicycle or owning a gun. Or having sex, for that matter. Serious reactions such as febrile seizures and Guilliam-Barre do occur, but are more common in the disease vaccines prevent than from the vaccine. Allergies are perhaps the biggest threat, but even people with known allergies can receive immunization in a location that is able to treat reactions.It is fairly easy to identify a vaccine injury but almost impossible to identify someone whose life has been saved by a vaccine. The benefits of vaccines are best seen in a statistical analysis, but most people are not good at this, or at estimating probabilities. So our perception is flawed.Many people are afraid of needles, some have a true phobia, which can be irrational. Preservation of bodily integrity is a universal instinct of most animals. Parents hate to hurt their children and make them cry. Antivaxxers exploit this aversion to discourage vaccination.The media, in their desire to be balanced, give excessive attention to antivaccination advocates, and do not properly analyze the risks and benefits.Getting a child vaccinated requires action. Many people are lazy or avoid acting because it's easier, and use vaccine fear as an excuse.

Dear MikeNo, no, no, no, no, no, no. No!!That’s like taking out asteroid-strike insurance from a fly-by-night agent who might also beat you up in a dark alley once you’ve bought the insurance from him :(As with everything, you need to balance the risk and the benefit. And as often happens, pretty much everyone has got the wrong end of the stick.The risk of getting an unusual thrombosis with the AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S/nCoV-19 vaccine is likely about one-in-a-million (182 cases in 190 million doses[1]) and pretty unlikely to be more than about 1:100,000. My personal risk of dying from COVID-19 should I get it is likely 10,000 times greater. My risk of ‘Long Covid’ from SARS-CoV-2 is about 100,000 times greater than that vaccine risk. Even if you’re aged 18–34, your risk of dying from COVID-19 is far, far greater than your risk of these rare thromboses,[2] quite apart from the fact that if we don’t get vaccine herd immunity, you’re more likely to kill your parents, grandparents and others by infecting them.It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the balance of risk.But wait, there’s more!But now you want to take a “natural anti-clotting substance” to protect you from this one-in-a-million chance! There are a few issues with this:Even in the best-controlled circumstances, if I use a ‘natural’ anticoagulant like heparin with meticulous monitoring, the risk of complications is at least several thousand times higher than that one-in-a-million risk of thrombosis. In trying to protect yourself, you’re just adding extra risk!If you want some sort of herb or something (without that meticulous control) you’re almost guaranteed not only to add risk, but can be pretty much certain that it won’t do a damn thing to stop thrombosis.This last point is even more pertinent now that we understand why those very rare, one-in-a-million thromboses occur. They may even be similar to the very, very common thrombosis that occurs with COVID-19 anyway.How do these clots happen?A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine shows how these rare clots might happen.[3] Not only is this explanation interesting, but it also shows why it’s even more silly to try to stop them using ‘natural’ methods.Rarely, humans develop antibodies to platelet factor 4, usually after exposure to heparin. This causes low platelets (HIT, or ‘heparin induced thrombocytopaenia’) and then clotting, especially where small amounts of heparin are given repeatedly in this condition. It seems that the unusual vaccine-related clots are similar—but without the heparin. The spike protein seems to goad the immune systems of these rare patients into producing similar antibodies, which both lower the platelet count and cause clotting.The treatment of this HIT-like disorder is tricky. High-dose intravenous immunoglobulin seems to work well, and strangely enough, high-dose low-molecular-weight heparin may help rather than causing more trouble.But natural remedies, Naah.And natural remedies to prevent a vanishingly rare complication? Triple-Naah.My 2c, Dr Jo.Footnotes[1] What is the blood clotting disorder the AstraZeneca vaccine has been linked to?[2] Coronavirus and COVID-19: Younger Adults Are at Risk, Too[3] Thrombosis and Thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccination | NEJM

Please do. For two reasons.First, the vaccines do not prevent you from catching and spreading covid. Recent studies suggest they reduce the risk, but they don't remove it entirely. We need to keep up with the masks a little longer to keep from spreading this thing to the people who are still unprotected.Second… unvaccinated people need to keep masking, to protect themselves as well as others. I think it’s important to encourage them. If someone goes to the supermarket and sees that half the people there aren't masked, they are more likely to say “Screw this shit” and take theirs off. I will continue to wear mine after vaccination to support a community spirit in which people are encouraged to mask.This isn't going to go on forever. Ignore the politicians who have turned this into a power trip, and the antivaxxers deliberately encouraging resistance. Case rates are beginning to drop. In Israel, which has vaccinated more of its population than any other country, both case rates and death rates are falling dramatically. Even as little vaccination as we've done has slowed the spread of the virus. In the next few months, as more and more people are vaccinated, we should see even greater progress. One scientist has estimated herd immunity by April. I think that s a bit premature, but it is definitely coming sooner rather than later. At that point, universal masking will no longer be necessary. So please have patience till then, and keep your masks on for now. The end is in sight.As a side benefit, there was virtually no flu this year because of covid precautions. And we are still in what is usually the worst part of flu season. Staying masked till spring protects you from more than covid.