Summary

The article discusses common misconceptions about the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines, emphasizing the thorough testing and ethical considerations involved in vaccine rollout.

Abstract

The article addresses the skepticism of anti-vaxxers regarding COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the concern that the vaccines were developed too quickly and may pose unknown risks. It explains that the vaccines were not rushed but rather benefited from existing research and unprecedented funding and volunteer participation. The article clarifies that while side effects exist, they are minimal compared to the risks of COVID-19 itself. It underscores that extensive testing on millions of people worldwide has proven the vaccines' safety and efficacy. The author argues that withholding vaccines at this stage is unethical, as it denies people a proven life-saving treatment. The piece concludes by highlighting the irony of individuals who refuse vaccination yet inadvertently become part of a control group for studying the unvaccinated, thereby putting themselves and others at risk.

Opinions

The author believes that anti-vaxxers' concerns about the speed of vaccine development are misplaced, as the rapid progress was due to prior research and substantial resources, not carelessness or corner-cutting.
The article suggests that the ethical considerations have shifted; it is now considered unethical to withhold vaccines that have been proven effective.
It points out the irony in anti-vaxxers' reluctance to be "lab rats," yet their refusal to vaccinate inadvertently places them in a potentially harmful control group.
The author implies that those who refuse vaccination are contributing to the perpetuation of the pandemic and the potential emergence of more dangerous virus mutations.
The piece advocates for the support of writers and journalists who provide factual information about vaccines and public health issues, encouraging readers to subscribe to newsletters and consider Medium memberships.
The author recommends an AI service, ZAI.chat, as a cost-effective alternative to ChatGPT Plus (GPT-4), suggesting it as a valuable resource for readers interested in AI capabilities.

Ain’t No-one Experimentin’ On Me, Mate!

Then here’s why you need to get yourself off the lab bench — Mate!

Clive Jaars, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I try not to engage with anti-vaxxers because what’s the point? But there’s an angle that strikes me as especially ironic. I’ve heard it expressed in a number of ways. Ain’t no-one experimentin’ on me, mate! is just one of them.

The argument goes like this:

The covid vaccines were developed too quickly — they must have taken shortcuts — they have side-effects — they’ve not been tested enough — why should I be a lab rat?

And all the while, the elephant in the room — indeed the lab rat in the cage — lumbers by unnoticed.

Yes, the vaccine developers took two massive shortcuts

Were the covid vaccines developed too quickly?

These vaccines certainly were developed quickly, though not from a standing start. Some (e.g. Astra Zeneca) began with the SARS-CoV-1 vaccine in the hopes it would be adaptable to SARS-CoV-2 (it was). Others (e.g. Moderna and Pfizer) were built on mRNA technology that has been around for many years (that worked too).

Quickly — yes. Too quickly — no.

Did they take shortcuts?

Yes, the vaccine developers took two massive shortcuts.

The first was in an area that has always caused the greatest delays in research: money. Money became no object. Teams and expertise could be put together with everything they needed to get on with the job — a full team, no regular teaching or consultancy commitments to take key people away from their work, no rushing out week after week to beg for money, no having to lay off the best expertise because the grant ran out.

The second shortcut was in getting subjects for clinical trials. Instead of the usual scraping around to recruit enough people of the right types, thousands were queueing to volunteer.

And it all went incredibly well.

Are there side effects?

Yes, there are side effects (every vaccine — every medicine, life itself — has side effects). Sadly, there were a handful of deaths, but not before 100s of 1000s of people had died from covid — and they tracked down the causes of those few side-effects deaths and worked out how to prevent them happening again.

Have the vaccines been tested enough?

In the early days, when the vaccines were used under emergency use regulations, the argument about lack of testing might at a stretch — a real stretch, pretty much a stretch to breaking point — have been used.

But now? No way.

The vaccines have been tested on millions of people — the dosages, the gaps between doses, the booster shots, the mixing and matching of the different types of vaccine, the different age groups, different health conditions — all tested on millions of people worldwide. Yes, they’ve been tested enough, and they continue to be tested.

So you don’t wanna be a lab rat, mate?

Uh… that ship sailed when you forced your way into the lab, mate!

At this stage of vaccine development and testing — indeed, of *anything* development and testing — no ethics committee is going to give the go-ahead for further tests that involve deliberately failing to vaccinate people. The vaccines have been shown to work, to save lives, to prevent the more serious complications of covid. Not giving them to people who can benefit has become unethical.

Sure there are things to be learned from having a control group from whom you withhold proven vaccines— how much more quickly they die, how much worse is their long-term damage when they survive — but it’s not considered ethical to create that type of control group when the detrimental effects of withholding a proven vaccine can literally risk life and limb.

Well … that is, not unless there are people who climb onto the lab bench and positively insist on becoming that control group. But wait, no one’s going to do that, right? Wrong, of course. Thousands upon thousands of experimental subjects wrong.

And while this tsunami of ignorance and conspiracy stretches healthcare systems to breaking point and puts the medically vulnerable at risk, at the same time as providing a deadly virus with the human reservoir in which to mutate into something truly apocalyptic, then we might as well let the scientists learn what they can from this self-appointed group of lab rats.

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