Questions for the Un-Vaxxed

Atlanta, GA

August 1, 2021

A few days ago, we examined the faulty reasoning and high-pressure tactics of those demanding more Covid mitigation measures and universal “vaccination”. 

Today we reverse the lens, flip the script, and explore the thought-processes that might make someone reluctant to inject our latest medical miracles into his upper arm.

The motivation of those who’ve taken the shots seems pretty obvious, and doesn’t require much explanation (not that the vaccinated are being ceaselessly harassed to explain themselves anyway). But it goes something like this:

A deadly virus is afoot and is highly contagious. We are assured by medical experts that these new remedies are easy, low-risk ways to evade contagion, minimize its impact, and reduce spread. The potion will save yourself and others, and allow us to get back to “normal” life. It’d be irresponsible not to lift a sleeve and insert the shot. 

Under these assumptions, one might wonder, why wouldn’t everyone just do what “Science” says…get with the program, take the treatment, and move on?

This is a legitimate question. But it’s almost always rhetorical, and rarely allowed to be answered. And if it is, the response is routinely and reflexively dismissed as “selfish”, “unscientific”, or “political” (these days, what isn’t?).

As with so many other issues in our discordant culture, we’ve divided into warring camps. Based on superficial assumptions, battle lines are implicitly assumed and immediately drawn. The walls go up and the bridges are raised. Argumentative arrows are exchanged, but communication is cut. 

Disagreement…whatever the topic and whichever the side…invariably entails uncharitable interpretations, impugned motives, and self-righteous condescension. All around us, anger is being stoked and manipulated, positioning people who just want to be left alone as the enemies of those who are upset that these reprobates aren’t doing what they’re told.

But…as one who recognizes the value of vaccines, has taken some myself, and who’s given them to my children…I’d like to see if we can’t dispense with the acrimony for a moment, and try to figure out why reasonable people might be cautious about injecting these new concoctions into their body. Who knows? Maybe we’ll learn something.

First, for context, we must keep in mind the giant Kafka novel in which we’ve all been forced to live. After eighteen months of this abominable ordeal, anyone unwilling to trust our politicians or the “public health” establishment would seem to be eminently rational and perfectly justified.

For a year and a half, we’ve been subjected to an unprecedented campaign of fear, disinformation, lies, shaming, censorship, intimidation, force, and fraud. Almost everything we’ve been told about the coronavirus and what “we” must do about it has been disingenuous, manipulative, and destructive. 

For absolutely no benefit, livelihoods were destroyed, families shattered, and personal liberty suppressed. Science has been convoluted and corrupted, it’s true advocates silenced and shunned. 

The deceit began early. Last spring, the esteemed heads of the WHO and NIH told us that the coronavirus was at least ten (and perhaps a hundred!) times more deadly than seasonal influenza. In reality, for those under 65, the case fatality rate of Covid is comparable to that of the flu. For younger cohorts it’s even less. And these “experts” knew this at the time.

Our “public health” wizards misled us by deliberately conflating the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) for flu with the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of Covid. Dr Anthony Fauci intentionally misled the public by comparing these two completely different metrics at a Senate hearing on March 11, 2020.

This was less that two weeks after a paper he co-wrote in the NEJM made the proper distinction, and acknowledged that Covid and flu case fatality rates are similar. But Fauci never corrected the false impression he left on the Senate floor, and with the American people. This was a mendacious, malicious, and nefarious way of frightening the public with a false narrative. It was a template to which he and other public officials have continually returned.

Next came the scary notion of “asymptomatic spread”… that each of us is a silent weapon, a disease vector liable to unleash the virus if we are allowed out of our homes, into a bar, or onto a beach.

It was on this basis that lockdowns were rationalized, masks have been mandated, and compulsory vaccination is being considered. But it’s not true. Asymptomatic people were never a significant driver of viral spread. We’ve known this for more than a year, yet we’re still told to act as if every innocuous breath is a potential poison. 

People became wary of air in the way medieval peasants feared evil spirits. This bred “social distancing”, plexiglass barriers, tape on the floor, one-way aisles, idiotic elbow bumps, and the entire mask fiasco. 

The list of absurdities was endless. We know this because they don’t end. On many occasions, we were promised they would. “Fifteen days to flatten the curve” became a rolling series of “two more weeks”.  

Then the objective nonsensically morphed from containing the virus to eradicating it. The focus shifted from hospitalizations and deaths to meaningless “case” counts, which incessantly crawled across the TV screens of the panicked home-bound. 

Masks were mandated, despite mounting evidence that they were useless, or even detrimental. The only way out, we were assured, was a “vaccine”. Once that was available, the nightmare would end. 

The shots have been available to some all year, and to most for months. Just about anyone who wants one has had it, and is fine with the risks of the jab. Those who don’t are willing to accept the consequences of the virus. That should’ve ended the farce. Everything should’ve opened up, as it was two years ago, with no restrictions. But it didn’t.

In the course of the last few weeks, as most people had finally begun to resume their lives, everything changed. Just a month ago, we were assured the “vaccines” were almost 100% effective. Then we were supposed to nudge our neighbors to get one. Now it’s the fault of the unvaccinated that the “vaccines” don’t work. As if one person needs to wear sunscreen to ensure another person doesn’t get burned.

Perhaps the problem is that these aren’t “vaccines” in the sense we usually think of them. What we are learning is that they may not provide long-term immunity, as with smallpox, polio, or tetanus. It’s also possible that those who’ve had the virus and the shot might be more susceptible to recurring Covid than those who haven’t. It’s too soon to tell.

Maybe these injections are more like fleeting mitigation measures, as with the annual shot for the flu. Perhaps effectiveness fades with time, and perhaps the limits are becoming apparent now. We don’t know. We’re still learning, which is fine, and appropriate. Unless you’ve already decided what the answer is (and must be), for you and everyone else. 

Regardless, the track record of the people relentlessly pushing vaccines as an irrefutable remedy for everyone on earth has hardly been one that instills confidence or warrants trust. That Dr Anthony Fauci has patents in parts of the vaccines should raise a few questions, and both eyebrows. But we are once again being asked (actually, told) to follow the people who’ve intentionally misled us, and who’ve been wrong at every turn.

With that context in mind, let’s return to our original query: why would anyone be so foolhardy and stubborn as to resist these vaccines? There could be many reasons, and several considerations. The most obvious is the relative risk this coronavirus presents to anyone contemplating the shots. 

Were someone old, fat, or diabetic, he’d probably not hesitate to take it. But for anyone under 65 and in good health, Covid is statistically no more severe than the seasonal flu, which we somehow managed to endure each winter without an annual panic. And many people don’t take flu shots either.

For the healthy within younger demographics, Covid risk is negligible. For children it’s almost non-existent. This isn’t the Spanish Flu, and certainly not the Bubonic Plague. For young kids, it’s not even the seasonal flu, which to them is a much greater risk. We’ve had the advantage from the beginning of knowing this, and of who’s most vulnerable. 

Many people in good physical condition may realize that for them Covid is simply not that dangerous. That the healthy among us might be more wary of the vaccine than they are of this virus isn’t surprising, or unreasonable.

But others among them might disagree. Having evaluated the virus, many people might think it presents risks sufficient to consider immunization. They would then contemplate the likely benefit, and potential downsides, from the shots. Let’s take a look at a few.

After initially assuring us…or at least strongly encouraging us to infer…that the vaccines provided complete and long-lasting protection, the drug manufacturers and the CDC now acknowledge that the shots don’t necessarily provide immunity, or prevent infection or transmission. 

At this point, we don’t need them to tell us that. Evidence of “breakthrough cases” is everywhere. This does not necessarily mean that the shots don’t potentially reduce impact or severity of the illness, or that they shouldn’t be taken. Nor should we be surprised that more is learned as additional data becomes available. That’s reasonable.

But that’s also the point. For over a year, medical “experts” have given us confident assurances on a host of issues. Inevitably, we’d soon learn that they were spectacularly wrong. If someone thinks Covid isn’t a significant risk to his health, he may prefer to get a better idea how safe and effective a vaccine is before sampling it himself. Noting that the shots don’t provide the long-term immunity that a previous infection apparently does, a healthy low-risk person may decide he’s more comfortable with the disease than the cure.

This determination may be strengthened when he considers potential short-term side-effects from the vaccine. We don’t know the long-term risks, because there’s been insufficient time to detect or monitor them. But these effects may become more pertinent, particularly if more and more shots are needed (perhaps at least annually) to preserve or restore immunity that dissipates with time.

But for the last six months, some near-term effects have been identified, some minor and mild, others more significant. Migraines, muscle soreness, anaphylaxis, spasms, seizures, brain fog, myocarditis, pericarditis, and death are among the more prominent (if infrequent) by-products. These and all other documented vaccine side-effects must be (and have been) reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).  Here is the latest data.

For perspective, consider that in 2019 a total of 605 deaths linked to ALL vaccines were reported to VAERS. So far, almost 12,000 have been reported linked to the Covid vaccines alone. Here is a chart showing reported deaths from 1990 to now.

In some cases, the “linkage” between vaccine and ailment may be as tenuous as the misleading attribution of many of the deaths with Covid to those from Covid. But for a relatively healthy person at little risk from the virus, it’s understandable that this data might prompt pause.

For such a person, awaiting more data and better information probably makes sense. Patience, in this instance as in most, is a virtue. Unfortunately for him, he lives in a society that sees little virtue in patience.

This contributes to a casual disregard of potential long-term effects from the vaccines. Again, we don’t know what they are or how significant they’ll be. But it seems unrealistic and irresponsible just to assume there’ll be none. 

Previous attempts at mRNA vaccines offer disconcerting precedent. A 2004 version produced hepatitis in ferrets. In 2005, mice and civets became sick and susceptible to coronavirus. In 2012 ferrets became sick and died. A 2016 study also produced lung disease in mice.

In each of these previous mRNA attempts, initial results were promising. It was only over time, after exposure to wilder versions of the virus, that subjects became ill or died. Will these vaccines produce similar effects? Who knows? But it’s not a dumb question. And if someone isn’t at high risk, it may make sense to wait for a better answer.

If our recalcitrant rube remains reluctant to take his shot, it could also be because he is aware of other treatment options. There are many that can be used to help prevent illness, or to mitigate it. Hydroxychloroquine, azythromicine, zinc, Invermectine, fluvoxamine, and Vitamin D, among others, all show promising efficacy. Here’s a peer-reviewed study on Ivermectin. And here’s another one.

Many doctors around the world have achieved success with these treatments…oftentimes used in combination…but that information is regularly suppressed in the corporate media of the “free” West. The Lancet last year published a fraudulent paper claiming hydroxychloroquine is dangerous and ineffective, but then apologized and retracted the paper two weeks later.

To the extent information about these alternatives wasn’t overtly suppressed, their use in many countries was explicitly rejected. Official agencies told doctors not to recommend them, and instead to tell their patients to stay home till they were so sick that they had trouble breathing. By that time it’s often too late. Doctors using these alternatives note that while they’re beneficial in the early stages of the infection, they are less effective in later phases.

While there have been no randomized clinical trials (RCT) affirming efficacy of these treatments, their relative safety has been established for years. Yet some doctors have had their medical licenses threatened if they recommend them. But if a treatment poses no significant risk and may be beneficial, it’s unethical to insist they not be used till an RCT confirms effectiveness…particularly when unapproved vaccines (with greater risk) are being pushed on much the same basis.

If opposition to these therapies makes no sense medically, ethically, or scientifically, it does make sense financially. That the alternatives are all inexpensive and readily available threatens the enormous profits the vaccine manufacturers are raking in. 

It’s not enough that taxpayers funded much of these companies’ research while the corporations retained the profit (all while having their patents protected and being shielded from liability). Big Pharma also received Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccines, despite there being safe and effective alternatives available…which is supposed to be illegal. So a person pondering whether to take these shots might reasonably wonder who really benefits each time one of them goes into his arm.

But, our skittish skeptic might think, “maybe this isn’t about me. Perhaps it’s about everyone else. What about my responsibility to my fellow man?” 

Good question. And one he must answer…particularly since he is constantly cast as a selfish cretin.

As he already recalled, asymptomatic spread was never a significant source of transmission, but it’s always been a terrific driver of fear and tactic to shame. This ascientific notion has been repeatedly asserted and accepted on the basis of no evidence. It came primarily from anecdotal claims and flawed mathematical models. There have been studies that identify, track, and test, but they found no examples of asymptomatic spread. Here’s one of them.

Yet, as this distortion was initially used to justify lockdowns and masks, it is now being repeated to urge vaccines. Again, that in and of itself doesn’t mean the vaccines aren’t viable or worth taking. But anyone who lived thru the last eighteen months is not unreasonable if he contemplates the track-record of those who put him thru that clown-show before rolling up his sleeve. 

After doing so, he may think that a more reasonable approach would be the one we’ve always taken. If you’re sick, stay home. If you’re worried about getting sick, take precautions. Otherwise, leave everyone else alone to make similar decisions for themselves.

But what about the children? They aren’t able to consider such factors or make these decisions. Don’t we have a responsibility to look out for them? Well, yes, of course. So why wouldn’t a responsible parent do the right thing, and vaccinate his kid?

Since Covid hit the headlines, we’ve known that children are in almost no danger from the virus, and pose little risk of spreading it. And of those under 25 who suffered more serious repercussions, more than 75% had prior underlying conditions. 

Yet, despite the risk to healthy young adults and children being basically zero, self-interested politicians, bureaucrats, and special interests are encouraging parents to vaccinate their kids to counter what are largely imaginary threats. Children are in greater danger on the car ride to get the shot than they are from the virus it is intended to prevent.

But risks from the vaccine…minor as they may (or may not) be…are legitimate. They are much more likely than Covid to be debilitating or fatal to kids. Naturally, the long-term risks are still not known, which would seem to argue more for caution than for enthusiasm with regard to vaccinating children.

Short-term risks…including post-vaccine myocarditis and pericarditis…are real, if rare (so far). But they are more prevalent in children and young adults than in older demographics, and these afflictions can cause permanent heart damage, among other things. Given that the potential benefit to children from these vaccines is statistically zero, it’s not surprising that parents might consider any risk from the shots to be too much for them to take. 

This is particularly true considering how unlikely children are to spread Covid. But even if their kids were prone to infect others, it is not incumbent on parents to place their children at increased risk in order to reduce that of someone else. Everyone is responsible for his own health. No adults should be demanding that kids sacrifice to protect themselves.

But what if our skeptic has none of these concerns, yet still hasn’t submitted to the directives of his superiors, and gotten his shot? What other motivation could there possibly be for such unreasonable intransigence?

Sometimes, it’s as simple as someone not wanting to do something because everyone else keeps badgering him to do it. Maybe hounding and berating people isn’t a very effective persuasion tactic. It’s human nature, especially when people start sanctimoniously blaming your decisions for their misfortune, for the object of their ire to resist the implication, and the order.

This isn’t necessarily admirable. Misplaced pride is not particularly attractive. But many “resistors” probably have a good bit of sensible skepticism as well. After all, if every two-bit politician, corporate CEO, Hollywood celebrity, and major media outlet is telling you to do something, it seems reasonable to be at least somewhat suspicious. In what other instance would we naturally assume that what these people are all advocating is a good idea?

Unanimous endorsement from such a disreputable group doesn’t necessarily mean that what they are pushing is wrong. But these people aren’t known for shedding their ulterior motives, or for having our best interests at heart. That a thoughtful cynic might at least wait a bit before blindly following the advice of these enlightened oracles doesn’t seem imprudent.

Science, as the insipid slogan has it, is real. But it’s on the side of the skeptics. That’s it’s nature. Science isn’t certain, and is never “settled”. There is no such thing as “scientific consensus”. That’s a loaded political phrase designed to acquire funds, accumulate power, and stifle dissent.

And if we stop asking questions and pushing back, that’s exactly what it will continue to do.

JD