15 January 2021,
In a time where the world needs that small boost of hope to keep going after a full year of misery and fear, the covid-19 was a big hit for all of us.
However now in 2021 the light of hope starts getting brighter by the passing days, thanks to the vaccine now many analysts predict that life will get back to what it was before and we can come back to our lives. Yet, we shall not hold our breath, due to some push back from minorities of the society, claiming that the vaccine is dangerous and can be harmful to people, won’t help the vaccine to a bigger portion. The conspiracy theories grow more and more to claim different theories about the virus and its vaccine, and it raises the question of what limits these people are willing to fight the freedom of an entire planet? And is the vaccine really harmful? And why are vaccines always questionable?
To keep this article far from being biased and directly on the facts I will try to explain vaccines from the beginning to the point where covid-19 was introduced.
History of vaccines:
Throughout history different cultures have figured that being exposed to an illness makes you immune to it for the rest of your life, for example, Buddhist monks drank snake venom to confer immunity to snakebite and vacillation. But only in 1796 did Edward Jenner notice that the people who deal with cowpox gave immunity to smallpox, and he ended up experimenting with a 13 year-old-boy and vaccinated him with the vaccinia virus (cowpox). After a while, the boy started healing and showed strong immunity to smallpox, and that way the first vaccine was developed.
After that many vaccines have been developed the same way, for example, Louis Pasteur who invented the cholera vaccine in the late 19th century, and the Plague vaccine that was invented in the late 19th Century. Between 1890 and 1950, bacterial vaccine development proliferated, including the Bacillus-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination, which is still in use today.
How vaccines work:
To understand how vaccines operate, it helps to first look at how the body fights illness. When germs, such as bacteria or viruses, invade the body, they attack and multiply. This invasion, called an infection, is what causes illness. The immune system uses several tools to fight infection. Blood contains red blood cells, for carrying oxygen to tissues and organs, and white or immune cells, for fighting infection. These white cells consist primarily of macrophages, B-lymphocytes, and T-lymphocytes.
So through that specific process, the scientist has developed 5 main types of vaccines to fight the viruses:
Live, attenuated vaccines: fight viruses and bacteria. These vaccines contain a version of the living virus or bacteria that have been weakened so that it does not cause serious disease, or affect a healthy immune system. Because live, attenuated vaccines are the closest thing to a natural infection, they are good teachers for the immune system. Examples of living, attenuated vaccines include measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and varicella (chickenpox) vaccine. Even though they are very effective, not everyone can receive these vaccines. Children with weakened immune systems—for example, those who are undergoing chemotherapy—can not get live vaccines.
Toxoid vaccines: prevent diseases caused by bacteria that produce toxins (poisons) in the body. In the process of making these vaccines, the toxins are weakened so they cannot cause illness. Weakened toxins are called toxoids. When the immune system receives a vaccine containing a toxoid, it learns how to fight off the natural toxin. The DTaP vaccine contains diphtheria and tetanus toxoids.
Conjugate vaccines: fight a different type of bacteria. These bacteria have antigens with an outer coating of sugar-like substances called polysaccharides. This type of coating disguises the antigen, making it hard for a young child’s immature immune system to recognize it and respond to it. Conjugate vaccines are effective for these types of bacteria because they connect (or conjugate) the polysaccharides to antigens that the immune system responds to very well. This linkage helps the immature immune system react to the coating and develop an immune response. An example of this type of vaccine is the Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) vaccine.
Subunit vaccine: is a vaccine that presents one or more antigens to the immune system without introducing pathogen particles, whole or otherwise. The antigens involved can be any molecule, and do not need to be a protein subunit; the word "subunit" simply means the antigen is a fragment of the pathogen.
Vaccines reality:
After that you learned how vaccines operate in a divide in a scientific way you may realize all the rumors are not only silly but just absurd, however, for the sake of argument we’ll discuss each rumor/myth:
1- Vaccines cause autism:
The rumor started in 1997 a study published by Andrew Wakefield, a British surgeon. The article was published in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, suggesting that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was increasing autism in British children. Later on, that paper got denied and discredited by scientists for procedural errors, undisclosed financial conflicts of interest, and ethical violations. Andrew Wakefield lost his medical license and the paper was retracted from The Lancet. Since Andrew, no other doctor or scientist could prove this myth although the hypothesis was taken seriously, and several other major studies were conducted. None of them found a link between any vaccine and the likelihood of developing autism.
Notable mention: even the cause of autism is a mystery doesn’t mean we should link to something very useful and effective and accuse it of one of the most tragic medical conditions.
The vaccine contains unsafe toxins:
Many would-be scared of vaccines due to the usage of ormaldehyde, mercury, or aluminum, but these toxins are only toxic if they are used in certain measures and dosages. The dosages used are usually approved by F.D.A or any other pharmaceutical organization around the world, and would not affect the body in a bad way.
Notable mention: according to the FDA and the CDC, formaldehyde is produced at higher rates by our own metabolic systems and there is no scientific evidence that the low levels of this chemical, mercury or aluminum in vaccines can be harmful.
Natural immunity is better than vaccine-acquired immunity.
Nobody can deny the efficiency of the body’s immunity, but for the immunity to work you have to fall sick, and in nowadays society, we try as much to prevent death and severe illness through many tools including vaccines. For example, if you only count on personal immunity measles you would face a 1 in 500 chance of death from your symptoms. In contrast, the number of people who have had severe allergic reactions from an MMR vaccine is less than one-in-one million.
The covid-19 vaccine contains chips to track and control us.
This myth takes the biggest piece of nonsense cake, not only for the lack of evidence and the big absurdity of no scientific backup but rather for the claim that we are not already tracked. If you’re reading this article it means that you’re using a computer or a phone, which is considered a tracker that is programmed to know your location/ interests/ face ID/ fingerprint/ pictures/ contact… and plenty of other information. At this point, if you don’t realize you are already tracked and controlled through your phone, you would be convinced that the vaccine is constantly checked and studied by any scientist and doctors around the world that would definitely notice GPS tracker and even more a device that would control people. In case one scientist or two missed it, dozens of others will notice it and they can’t silence them all, so logically this myth is false.
What to take from this article?
After clearly going through the details of vaccination now you may feel like you had enough information to go get vaccinated, and that’s a good first step, to not listen to rumors and only follow the logical facts and science thus being on the safe side. No matter how good or noble the science gets, there will always be so much push back, just remember how Ignaz Semmelweis was fought back for telling doctors to wash their hands to prevent moms and their babies from dying. You may feel left out and lost sometimes, between all the fake media and people that fight so hard to show their opinion no matter how wrong and far from reality it can be, just remember to stay curious and follow the general good. I wish you a happy vaccination and great upcoming years free from the restraint of covid-19.
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