CULTURE

The Toxic Absurdity of ‘I Don’t Know What’s In It’

They won’t take the vaccine, but they’ll eat a Hot Pocket

“I don’t know what’s in it.”

This is one of the big arguments you hear from various anti-vaxxers and latent conspiracy theorists. They refuse to take the vaccine because they “don’t know what’s in it.” This is their rationale for putting themselves, their family, friends, and their community at risk for serious illness and death. They don’t know what’s in the vaccine, or how it works, so they’re not going to take it, despite massive scientific evidence to support the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

If this is the basis for your acceptance of all manner of medicine, technology, food, and drink, not to mention our long-standing rampant illicit drug trade, how do you expect to get through life? The sheer volume of technology and science that we don’t understand, but that are an integral part of modern life, is almost beyond comprehension. The idea that you might have a solid grasp on anything but the thinnest surface level of a fraction of what there is to know, is patently absurd. You don’t know how almost anything works.

How did this one vaccine suddenly require an in-depth knowledge of molecular biology, virology, and genetic engineering? You don’t trust the vaccine, but you’ll take a hit off that joint that got passed to you by a stranger at a backyard barbecue? You don’t accept that hundreds of millions of people have been successfully vaccinated but you’ll ingest a horse dewormer like they’re Altoids?

In 1982, a British chemist named Sir John Vane shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in part for figuring out how aspirin worked. Not 1782 or even 1882. 1982.

“Vane discovered that aspirin blocks an enzyme called cyclooxygenase, or COX, and stops production of substances called prostaglandins that contribute to pain, swelling and fever when the body is injured. One prostaglandin, called thromboxane, is produced in tiny blood cells called platelets, and causes them to adhere to one another and plug up any sites of bleeding.” (NY Times, April, 2000)

Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but we’ve had a vaccine for smallpox since 1799. As late as 1952, geneticists didn’t know how DNA worked, and now we can splice it with a tool called Crispr, which sounds like something you’d get roped into buying at Karen’s Pampered Chef home show.

In 1918, during the last great pandemic, you might forgive people for being a bit skeptical of medicine, given that doctors were still recommending the use of leeches to remove your blood well into the early 20th century.

But since then, we’ve been to the moon and flown a helicopter on Mars. We’ve reattached arms, legs and penises; created artificial hearts and grown meat in a lab. We cured polio and cloned a sheep named Dolly — two sheep. We literally split an atom and then figured out how to take that energy and make it power an aircraft carrier for twenty years without refueling.

You’re probably reading this on a device that would have been beyond comprehension a century ago. There is more computing power in a single app on the phone in your pocket than they had for the entire space program that put men on the moon.

You don’t know how any of this shit works, and neither do I.

In today’s fast-paced world, one could argue that’s understandable to be skeptical of much of what we are being told on a regular basis, but even that you have to handle it with a certain amount of moderation. You can’t go around distrusting everything. You’d never get through your day. We trust 99% of what we see and hear as the truth — because it is.

We all use paper money, which represents a numeric value as sanctioned by the state. It has no inherent value. You can’t do anything else with it, except maybe burn it. But you’ll gladly take my $20 bill because you trust that the next guy will take it as well.

Some people prefer to use what we call “hard currency,” as opposed to a digital wire transfer, credit card, or promissory note because they feel that paper money is somehow real, even though it only has value because the government says it does.

Most of us think we know how electricity travels, but we really don’t. Electricity doesn’t pass through wires and into our homes like plumbing, even though that’s more or less what we’ve been taught. The energy transfer has to do with a combination of electrical and magnetic fields surrounding the wires and the devices and that’s how energy is transferred. Even that is oversimplifying things.

It’s rather complicated, involving electrons traveling at the speed of light but also barely moving at all. Most of us don’t really understand any of it. We just trust that it works as advertised. We flip the light switch, and there is light. We are the lords of all creation, bringing light into darkness, and air conditioning.

People say they don’t trust the vaccine because they don’t know what’s in it, but you can find a list of ingredients for all the vaccines right on the CDC website. The problem isn’t that we don’t know what’s in the vaccine, the problem is we don’t understand the science behind it. The thing is, we don’t understand the science concerning most things.

The CDC lists the Pfizer-BioNTech (mRNA) vaccine’s active ingredients as Nucleoside-modified mRNA encoding the viral spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2, and the inactive ingredients as 2[(polyethylene glycol (PEG))-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, Cholesterol, (4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), Sodium chloride, Monobasic potassium phosphate, Potassium chloride, Dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and Sucrose. Of course, unless you’re a chemist or a qualified virologist that doesn’t mean jack shit to you. You probably don’t really know the difference between inactive and active ingredients.

“Exactly,” you say. “I don’t know what any of that shit is. I’m not putting that in my body.”

But you’ll eat a tomato, even though it’s a member of the nightshade family, which can undoubtedly kill you. Why do you eat the tomato? Because you’ve seen other people do it, and they haven’t dropped dead yet.

Millions of people in America have refused the vaccine and instead have taken to ingesting Ivermectin, an animal dewormer used to treat infections caused by roundworms, threadworms, and other parasites. Doctors, virologists, and scientists have said repeatedly that Ivermectin is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 and there is zero evidence that it would ever be. Even the manufacturer says so. So what do you suppose in this pill that everyone feels free to take against any doctor’s recommendation?

According to the manufacturer, Ivermectin is a mixture containing at least 90% 5-O-demethyl-22,23-dihydroavermectin A1a and less than 10% 5-O-demethyl-25-de(1-methylpropyl)-22,23-dihydro-25-(1-methylethyl)avermectin A1a, generally referred to as 22,23-dihydroavermectin B1a and B1b, or H2B1a and H2B1b, respectively.

Frankly, that sounds even scarier than the vaccine, and even less apparent what the ingredients actually might be. Ivermectin is prescribed to humans as well, but for the same reason—to kill parasitic worms. While a virus could be considered a form of parasite, it’s not capable of living outside the host and is cellular. Ivermectin doesn’t kill viruses. It kills worms. Different thing.

The truth is, we don’t know what’s in a lot of things we consume. As a comparison, let’s look at what’s inside a Pepperoni Hot Pocket, the Nestle-brand, snack-filled pepperoni, cheese, and rich marinara packed into a crispy crust topped with Italian-style herbs and breadcrumbs. Here is what Nestle, the good people who make wholesome chocolate chips and cookies says is in one of their Pepperoni Hot Pockets:

Enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, reduced fat mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, nonfat milk, modified food starch*, cultures, salt, vitamin a palmitate, enzymes, *ingredients not in regular Mozzarella Cheese), pepperoni made with pork, chicken, and beef (pork, mechanically-separated Chicken, beef, salt, contains 2% or less of spices, dextrose, lactic acid starter culture, oleoresin of paprika, sodium ascorbate, flavoring, sodium nitrite, bha, bht, citric acid), tomato paste, 2% or less of palm oil, seasoning (bread crumbs [bleached wheat flour, dextrose, yeast, salt], maltodextrin, garlic powder, spices, tomato powder, potassium chloride, salt, dextrose, onion powder, yeast extract, xanthan gum, citric acid, natural flavor), sugar, soybean oil, fractionated palm oil, modified food starch, salt, yeast, dough conditioner blend (calcium sulfate, salt, l-cysteine hydrochloride, garlic powder, tricalcium phosphate, enzymes), dough conditioner (distilled monoglycerides with ascorbic acid and citric acid [antioxidants]), egg yolks, whey, soy flour, egg whites.

That seems like a lot, I’ll admit.

For something that is supposed to be pepperoni, cheese, and marinara in a dough pouch, that’s a lot of stuff. You probably shouldn’t put that in your body, but you wouldn’t suspect some sort of evil intent, just a little normal weight gain and possibly some gastrointestinal distress. But if they told you the cure to COVID-19 was pepperoni Hot Pocket’s, you’d be eating six a day. You don’t know what xanthan gum, distilled monoglycerides, or mechanically-separated chicken is, but you’ve probably had a Hot Pocket.

What about something not food-related, actual medicine that no one suspects of doing anything except what it claims. How about Cherry-flavored Robitussin Cough Syrup? In the old days, they threw everything in there, from alcohol, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and codeine. It might not have done much for your cough, but I bet you felt a whole lot better. Here’s what’s in today’s Robitussin, according to their website:

Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide (DM) 15 mg, Guaifenesin 200 mg, Citric acid, corn syrup, FD&C Red №40, flavour, glycerin, maltol, polyethylene glycol, propylene glycol, sodium benzoate, sodium carboxymethylcellulose, sodium saccharin, sorbitol and water.

Do you know what propylene gylcol is, let alone Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide? Propylene glycol is a substance commonly used as a food additive or ingredient in many cosmetic and hygiene products. The US and European food authorities have declared it as generally safe for use in foods. However, it is sometimes controversial since it is also an ingredient in antifreeze. It’s also used in skin care products as a conditioner, but don’t ask me how. It just does.

Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide is the hydrobromide salt form of dextromethorphan, a synthetic, methylated dextrorotary analogue of levorphanol, a substance related to codeine and a non-opioid derivate of morphine. Dextromethorphan exhibits antitussive activity and is devoid of analgesic or addictive property. It’s a combination of an antihistamine and a cough suppressant used to treat cough, itching, runny nose, sneezing, and itchy or watery eyes caused by colds or allergies. It can cause drowsiness.

Dangerous physical symptoms of dextromethorphan overdose include tachycardia, slow breathing, changes in blood pressure and body temperature, and seizures. It is important to get help for a person suffering from a DXM overdose before these symptoms begin because they are more likely to lead to coma or death. So, you know, take the recommended daily dosage; maybe don’t drink it by the gallon.

All this is stuff you can readily look up, by “doing your own research,” if you will. But unless you’re willing to get a lot more in-depth with sourcing ingredients, chemical compounds, and the complexity of the human body, including how it reacts to various chemical components, as well as bacteria, viruses, disease, and genetic mutations, you’ll be hard-pressed to understand the ramifications of altering a single element, let alone the entirety of the problem. You trust that in America if they put it on the shelves, someone has checked it out first to make sure it’s safe.

One of the most difficult things about dealing with anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists is that they’re claiming to be skeptics, all the while being as gullible as can be for the latest scam. People should be more cynical about what they’re told, but that doesn’t mean you abandon common sense, logic, and reason.

Taking a drug that kills parasites in sheep because you understand the concept better than how rDNA technology uses enzymes to cut and paste together DNA sequences of interest, in order to teach our body how to fight an invading novel coronavirus, is not sound scientific reasoning. It’s a bit less rational than believing the sun orbits around the earth, that cats are gods, or that you can make gold out of the lead.

Believing the thing you can grasp intellectually and disputing or ignoring the things you don’t understand, is not a rigorous exercise of “doing your own research.” It’s more often than not, a Google search until you find a blogger who has read the same misinformation that you have, and passed it on. If you see it enough times, something quite easy to do in the echo-chamber of social media, then you begin to assume that there’s some truth to it, even when it’s been scientifically debunked.

This is what is known as confirmation bias. Once we believe a thing, it’s very hard to get us to disbelieve that thing, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence. We turn into a four-year-old who is convinced that if they hold their breath, they can change the laws of the universe, or at least Dad’s force of will.

If I’m being honest, I have zero confidence that anyone who is skeptical of vaccines will ever read this, and if they did, that they would change their minds. I’m aware that this was an exercise in futility, a chance to preach to the choir. Maybe it was just a way for me to excise my demons and give me a chance to vent against the stupidity that threatens to engulf us.

This did not happen in a vacuum. It was political, strategic, and opportunistic. It was a perfect storm of sheer ignorance, institutional distrust, and a desire for personal control in a world seemingly bereft of any.

But this isn’t a social experiment, it’s real life, and people are dying. I can’t imagine being intubated, not being able to breathe, and thinking, “I don’t know what’s in Pop-Tarts and I’ve eaten boxes of those. What would have been the real risk of getting a shot?”

Well, at least you’ll own those libs you left behind to bury you.

That’ll show ‘em.