Alex Posoukh

“The ‘vaccine hesitant’ are a threat to society. But we must show them compassion”

Globe and Mail Opinion by Dr. Kalla

Rebuttal

Having grown up in the Soviet Union, vaccinations have been just a part of life one doesn’t think about all too often. Up until a year ago, I had never refused a single vaccination when offered. However, as I have invested a considerable amount of personal effort to understand the events of the past 14 months, my personal understanding of issues related to vaccination has undergone a significant change. So significant in fact that my current position on vaccines in general is closer to the so called “ant-vaxx” camp than that of the mainstream. However, I refuse to utilize such pejoratively loaded terms that frame the discussion in black and white that are not only offensive but outright unscientific, as science, in its purest form, is not at all black and white, but rather constantly firmly resides in the grey spectrum of questions, hypotheses and arguments.

Your introductory point on the herd immunity hypothesis has definite merit. However, after 14 months of the pandemic, it is clear that large portions of the population, depending on the jurisdiction¹, have been exposed to the SARS Cov2. Given a slew of recent studies on naturally acquired immunity, such immunity is preferrable to the vaccine-induced version of it². Moreover, a series of alarms have been raised regarding the potential for increased side effects associated with the vaccination of the previously exposed population³. Taking these points into consideration, it is untenable to strive for vaccine-induced immunity without accounting for those who don’t need such coverage and are at the additional risk of side-effects. Moreover, according to some recent opinion polls, vaccine trust among Canadians is already over 70%, thus making the whole point of editorial moot⁴.

You are generalizing the miracle of the vaccines, as if such have never been failures. This is not factual. On the role of the vaccines in battling many deadly diseases, this claim is exaggerated as per some studies^5.This and other studies concluded that while vaccines may have played a role in the extirpation of the certain diseases, they are not at all the main drivers of such epidemiological declines. From Salk polio vaccinations⁶, to 1976 swine flu scare^7, to the H1N1 2009 Pandemrix vaccination failure⁸, vaccines, even if assumed to be a preferable cure for any given disease should be handled with extreme caution. The recent Indian finding on the 490,000 additional cases of paralysis associated with the oral polio vaccine only add urgency to such a position^9,10.

You state unequivocally that societal obligation is an important part of the current vaccination campaign. You must be implying that the higher degree of vaccinated population will cause lower rates of transmission. While being entirely plausible, vaccine manufacturers, such as Pfizer¹¹, have not made any affirmative statements to the ability of their products to interrupt transmission. And if transmission interruption is not certain, so neither is the societal obligation to be vaccinated.

It is interesting that you chose your own anecdotal examples to support your position, while “debunking” all competing claims wholesale. You speak of tetanus cases in your ER practice. According to the Government of Canada’s own information¹², there are on average 3 tetanus cases per year, with all of them having been tagged with “unknown” vaccination status. In other words, you can’t possibly see enough cases to draw any statistically meaningful conclusions. You make a similar statement about flu vaccinations, implying that the unvaccinated are more likely to be harmed by the infection. However, this is not the case at all. In fact, there are several published studies over the past 20 years that have found no correlation between flu vaccination rates and all-cause mortality¹³. Now, some studies did make this argument, but the numbers were not high enough it to note on the ER floor. The US CDC, a conflicted party, itself ranks flu vaccination effectiveness ranges from a low 10% to high 60%¹⁴, hardly a show of overwhelming strength.

Now back to side-effects. To state that such don’t exist is not just controversial but outright reprehensible. They most certainly exist. On the legal front, the US Vaccine Court has paid out more than four billion dollars¹⁵ in the vaccine injury compensation claims over the last 30 years. Every vaccine insert comes with a long list of possible side-effects and warnings regarding the liability waivers¹⁶. On the reporting front, we have VAERS reporting system that documents such injuries. Given that false filing of such reports in a felony¹⁷, it is hard to imagine an issue with overreporting. In fact, there is a significant issue with underreporting, as per this Harvard study¹⁸. Over the last few months, the mainstream press filed several reports of such injuries related to the Covid-19 vaccinations. Are you implying that none of it relates to vaccines and are simply a result of false attribution?

You state that the mainstream press is not doing enough to combat vaccine hesitancy. Anybody who has listened, read and watched the mainstream media over the last 6 months knows that your statement is simply false, as the mainstream media tries to sweep under the rug any and all vaccine hesitancy concerns.

Given the previous comment on the history and role of vaccines in eradication of infectious diseases, you use the cases of smallpox and polio as examples to follow. This is misleading. The virus SARS Cov2 and the disease Covid-19 relate to the category of the upper respiratory tract infections. This is not comparable with either polio or smallpox. This is comparable with diseases caused by influenza viruses and therefore more comparable to flu vaccination efforts which are far less successful than those that are alleged to have defeated the smallpox and polio. Considering the history of these two diseases, one can note a number of weaknesses in the mainstream hypothesis, but for the sake of brevity I would just mention the simple fact that both diseases had already been in substantial decline even before worldwide vaccination efforts that started in 1960s^19,20.

You mention rabies. While I am not opposed to rabies vaccinations, one must note that in nearly 95 years, the whole of Canada reported 25 deadly cases of human rabies²¹. This is hardly a statistic to build one’s persuasions. You then mention the case of measles as to support your point, referring to the controversial Wakefield study that connected the MMR vaccine to autism. Remarkably, you omit to tell the whole story which was not that Wakefield opposed the measles vaccinations per se, but that he opposed multivalent vaccinations such as MMR due their presumably high adjuvant toxicity. In fact, upon publishing his study, Dr. Wakefield called on the British authorities to expand measles only vaccination option as an alternative²².

Speaking of multivalent vaccines, you must know of the Guinea Bissau study²³ undertaken by Dr. Aaby of Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark. Being one of the most detailed vaccination studies in history, you must know the doubts arising out of the many multivalent vaccinations that surpass the issues such as autism to the point of serious all-cause mortality effects. In other words, while each individual vaccination program such as measles vaccine might indeed show much promise in disease eradication, when taken together with other vaccinations (DTP) might deliver significantly less desirable results. This is all the more important to understand given that the current Covid-19 vaccination campaigns are based on entirely new experimental technologies whose interaction with our total immunity is generally unknown.

So, thank you for your empathy for the “hesitant”. As patronizing it may be, it must at least be based on actual, and not rhetorical, science.

Bibliography:

1. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1

2. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.11.21256578v1

3. https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2021/5/washington-post-fact-check

4. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/vaccine-hesitant-changed-minds-1.6022537

5. https://www.milbank.org/quarterly/articles/the-questionable-contribution-of-medical-measures-to-the-decline-of-mortality-in-the-united-states-in-the-twentieth-century/

6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/14/cutter-polio-vaccine-paralyzed-children-coronavirus/

7. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200918-the-fiasco-of-the-us-swine-flu-affair-of-1976

8. https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948/rapid-responses

9. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/vaccine-induced-paralysis-calls-for-action-says-study/article24740588.ece

10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121585/