Hippocrates born in 460BC some 2500 years ago was called the “Father of Modern Medicine,” later Sir William Osler was honored with a similar title. Hippocrates may not have used the Latin phrase himself although it is attributed to him, “Primum Non Nocere,” which translated means “First, do no harm.” Osler on the other hand followed the principles of safety in his surgical techniques while at Johns Hopkins. We seem to have come a long way from such a warning.
As a society we continue to lurch forwards paying less and less heed to that dictum. From “Blood Letting” which was borne of the ancient Egyptians to the Greeks to the four humors of Galen of Pergamum the art flourished till such luminary lives of George Washington and Charles II were lost by such a therapeutic approach. Scientists have created many a medicine that have fallen to ashes because of harm to the individual patient. Thalidomide used as sedation in pregnancy that caused phocomelia in the newborn and Vioxx that caused cardiac complications. Both and several others were relegated to the ash of history.
Vaccines were created to thwart disease, and it took many years of longitudinal study before they were safely employed for the protection of humanity. Polio vaccine took close to 20+ years before being approved for mass vaccination as did the measles vaccine that took more than a decade to be brought into use. Such was the worry of harm to the individual that cast aside all other fears. After all a vaccine used for prevention of an illness, only a minimal harm is acceptable but not a life threatening one!
Which brings us to the current COVID vaccine that enjoys the limited rigors of science. After only a few thousand individuals were observed for a median of 2 months in a randomized trial, the vaccine was rapidly and enthusiastically allowed to be used in an Emergency Use Authorization mode. Even being an experimental vaccine, no informed consents were required prior to the “jab.” After much pomp and circumstance as a panacea against the 120-nanometer virus, humans lined up to get the jabs.
Any suggestion of Natural Immunity from a previous infection was downplayed as limited immunity, and suddenly after years of evidence related to herd immunity that too was suddenly relegated to wrong science by the experts. Although natural immunity is more robust and durable form of immunity as compared to the Pfizer, Moderna and others whose vaccine related immunity is directed via the mRNA only at the Spike Protein of the SARS CoV2. Yet previously infected individuals were convinced by the public health officials that they too must be vaccinated. The question of negating the broad and durable immunity with the vaccine immunity may bring into question whether the latter might affect the former’s durability. The game was on. As more and more data became available, the population seemed to shrug its collective shoulders to go for the jab. As the vaccination rate contracted, the Authorities first tried “incentives” as lottery tickets, free hamburgers, free tickets to a ball-game and other such inducements. Some were enticed others stood their ground seeking more information. As the desirable goal of the government seemed unreachable, the media and the Authorities started painting those who remained unvaccinated and had questions about the vaccines as “killers” of others. In keeping with that thought the White House brought in social media technocrats to muzzle anyone who questioned the vaccine as purveyors of “misinformation.” The term misinformation was. It seemed applied broadly to anyone questioning the vaccine efficacy or the adverse events related to it.
But reality plays its own game. Steadfast through the ordeals data kept emerging as to the harms. The CDC VAERS site continue to collect information on the daily numbers of deaths that were accruing. The current vaccine related deaths have reached beyond 10,000. The Authorities however contend that in the scheme of things with over 160 million vaccinated, these numbers are extremely small hence the risk remains minimal. The question is for whom?
Harms manifested on the elderly include deaths and among the young the potential of myocarditis and its long-term harm of heart failure remains. Blood clotting due to activation of the PF4 factor in some has caused heart attacks, strokes and diffuse micro-clotting with resultant loss of the platelets in the blood stream that protect from spontaneous bleeding. Others have sustained neurological phenomena, including Cranial Nerve paralysis (Bells Palsy) reported in a case controlled study. While some have succumbed to the vagaries of “Pathogenic Priming” and Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) by the Immune reaction to the large production of the Spike Protein and its circulation within the blood system. While the Swine Flu vaccine was stopped after 10 weeks due to 25 deaths, the COVID vaccine continues unrestrained under the promotional marketing of the pharmaceutical agencies, the governmental Authorities, and the Main-stream Media.
Even though many European Countries banned the use of the Astra Zeneca Vaccine on grounds of its lack of Safety, it continued to be used in others. A recent European modeling study based on events show the risks-to-benefit ratio from vaccines. The recent Euro trial suggest the harms outweigh the benefits of the vaccines. The study, published in the weekly edition of the Eurosurveillance journal, models four months of a vaccine distribution strategy in France involving Vaxzevria (commonly called AstraZeneca) from May 2021, and concludes that using the vaccine on the entire adult population there would avert 10 deaths from Covid among 18-39-year-olds, but would be associated with 21 deaths from blood clotting in the same age grouping over the same time period.
The organizing principle of vaccination is prevention of an illness from a pathogen with minimal harm. The minimal harm does not, under any circumstance, suggest death, long term infirmity or disability. Such precautions have not been taken thus far. The desire to pursue is so strong that even physicians and the guardians of the public health have been silenced into a tacit agreement of this public health officials, governmental authorities, pharma executives and the main-stream media arrangement. No one, it seems, can speak the truth. Physicians fear loss of license, businesspeople fear loss of their business, fathers, and mothers fear loss of their livelihoods in countering such rhetoric. Science has always been open to questions; that is how it advances. But these days all questioning has been stifled.
We must all ask the question, “WHY?”
