The side effects of Covid vaccines from the New York Slimes

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‘I’m not real’

Let me start with a disclaimer: The subject of today’s newsletter will make some readers uncomfortable. It makes me a little uncomfortable.

The Times has just published an article about Americans who believe they suffered serious side effects from a Covid vaccine. More than 13,000 of them have filed vaccine-injury claims with the federal government.
My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli tells some of their stories in the article, including those of several people who work in medicine and science:

• Ilka Warshawsky, a 58-year-old pathologist, said she lost all hearing in her right ear shortly after receiving a Covid booster shot.

• Dr. Gregory Poland, 68 — no less than the editor in chief of Vaccine, a scientific journal — said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first Covid shot.

• Shaun Barcavage, 54, a nurse practitioner in New York City, has experienced a ringing sound in his ears, a racing heart and pain in his eyes, mouth and genitals for more than three years. “I can’t get the government to help me,” Barcavage said. “I am told I’m not real.”

This subject is uncomfortable because it feeds into false stories about the Covid vaccines that many Americans have come to believe — namely, that the vaccines are ineffective or have side effects that exceed their benefits. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, has promoted these stories, as have some Republican politicians and conservative media figures. “The scale of misinformation,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins University told Apoorva, “is staggering.”


So let me be clear: The benefits of the Covid vaccines have far outweighed the downsides, according to a voluminous amount of data and scientific studies from around the world. In the U.S. alone, the vaccines have saved at least several hundred thousand lives and perhaps more than one million, studies estimate. Rates of death, hospitalization and serious illness have all been much higher among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated.
Here is data from the C.D.C., in a chart by my colleague Ashley Wu:

Source: Our World in Data, C.D.C. | Numbers for the group “All” are age adjusted. | By The New York Times

Not only are the vaccines’ benefits enormous, but the true toll of the side effects may be lower than the perceived toll: Experts told Apoorva that some people who believe Covid vaccines have harmed them are probably wrong about the cause of their problems.

How so? Human beings suffer mysterious medical ailments all the time. If you happened to begin experiencing one in the weeks after receiving a vaccine, you might blame the shot, too, even if it were a coincidence. So far, federal officials have approved less than 2 percent of the Covid vaccine injury-compensation claims they have reviewed.

Still, some ailments almost certainly do stem from the vaccines. The C.D.C. says some people are allergic (as is the case with any vaccine). Both the C.D.C. and researchers in Israel — which has better medical tracking than the U.S. — have concluded that the vaccines contributed to heart inflammation, especially in young men and boys. Officials in Hong Kong — another place with good health care data — have concluded that the vaccines caused severe shingles in about seven vaccine recipients per million.


Honesty and trust

These side effects are worthy of attention for two main reasons.
First, people who are suffering deserve recognition — and the lack of it can be infuriating. Dr. Janet Woodcock, a former F.D.A. commissioner, told The Times that she regretted not doing more to respond to people who blame the vaccines for harming them while she was in office. “I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously,” Woodcock said.

The second reason is that public health depends on public trust, and public trust in turn depends on honesty. During the pandemic, as I’ve written in the past, government officials and academic experts sometimes made the mistake of deciding that Americans couldn’t handle the truth.


Instead, experts emphasized evidence that was convenient to their recommendations and buried inconvenient facts. They exaggerated the risk of outdoor Covid transmission, the virus’s danger to children and the benefits of mask mandates, among other things. The goal may have been admirable — fighting a deadly virus — but the strategy backfired. Many people ended up confused, wondering what the truth was.

The overall picture

Here’s my best attempt to summarize the full truth about the Covid vaccines:

They are overwhelmingly safe and effective. They have saved millions of lives and prevented untold misery around the world. They’re so valuable that elderly people and those with underlying health conditions should be vigilant about getting booster shots when they’re eligible.

For most children, on the other hand, booster shots seem to have only modest benefits, which is why many countries don’t recommend them.

And, yes, a small fraction of people will experience significant side effects from the vaccines. Eventually, scientific research may be able to better understand and reduce those side effects — which is more reason to pay attention to them.

Overall, Covid vaccines are probably the most beneficial medical breakthrough in years, if not decades.

I encourage you to read Apoorva’s article.

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