| As we stagger toward the end of 2020 there is hope, a hope tempered, for many, by skepticism and uncertainty. Vaccines against the scourge of Covid-19 are becoming available at a record pace, even as multiple worries and wonderings percolate among us. The concerns run the gamut from “I’m just not sure it’s safe” to “the vaccine is a plot by Bill Gates to track us by implanting nano chips in our bodies so the masterminds of the New World Order can control us.” Much concern stems fundamentally from doubts about the motivations of the vaccine innovators–folks we don’t know–toiling away somewhere meddling with biology we struggle to understand. We wonder how much money and politics pollutes the whole endeavor. All that concern is heightened by four years of a president consistently unmoored from reality and from science. [Watch “Totally Under Control” on Hulu or Amazon Prime for a comprehensive review of pandemic mismanagement, the last year of that unmoored reign.] Our suspicions have been stoked by at least a half century of Republican declarations on the evils of “big government,” by countless dystopian movies and novels (e.g. The Matrix), by religious leaders prognosticating the End Times evils that supposedly lurk among us, and by the fantastical conspiracies that crazy folk like Alex Jones spend their lives spinning. Small wonder that we harbor lingering doubts about everything. I take great comfort in reading the transparently presented vaccine trials themselves, like the Pfizer vaccine Phase III trial I reviewed here. I firmly believe that the, literally, thousands of people involved in this vaccine effort and trials and others like it, are primarily motivated by a desire to help their fellow humans threw off the oppression of this virus by developing a safe and effective vaccine. Keep in mind there will never be a vaccine that has zero risk. There is absolute certainty. There will always be the chance of an idiosyncratic deadly or debilitating reaction. That said, a detailed report of nearly 20,000 people vaccinated with an excellent interim result is good enough for me–especially when I compare it to the isolation we have kept for nearly a year and the misery and death associated with Covid-19 that creeps closer each day among our friends and acquaintances. I have copied and pasted below Betsy Brown, M.D.’s December 16 post in Update from an Epidemic. I encourage you to sign up for her daily email at that link. I look forward to it each evening. She is a physician in Seattle whom I know as an acquaintance through several friends. Her emails offer me some surprising insights. I reproduce this one as an expansion on the issue of trust and as an example of her excellent work as an commenter on the pandemic.(In this one Dr. Brown expanded my mind on a topic about which I’ve written, Smallpox variolation and vaccination.) Keep to the high ground, Jerry I have known about the Tuskegee Study for years. The Tuskegee Study is a major factor in why so many African Americans distrust the medical system, and especially, the research arm of it. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment ran from 1932 until 1972 (!). African American men who had latent syphilis were followed to see the natural history of the disease. The men thought they were getting free health care and were unaware they were infected. The syphilis was left untreated, despite penicillin being available to cure it. 600 poor sharecroppers were followed to see the course of the disease. 399 had latent syphilis, at least 128 died from syphilis or its complications. Obviously violating ethical standards, when discovered, outrage led to new regulations to protect people in studies. This is one reason why “informed consent” in research is so detailed. Consent is considered vital.The other effect of the study being found out was that it added more fuel to African American’s distrust of the medical system, especially involving clinical research. This is a major reason many clinical trials have low numbers of African Americans as subjects. It is also why they may be distrustful of a vaccine for COVID-19. You can’t really blame them.But maybe when they find out that Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who is African American, helped design the vaccine, they will be more accepting. She hopes so.And then I read another story about early inoculations for smallpox and learned things I didn’t know. I wish I had known this hidden history earlier. The concept of inoculation with a tiny amount of smallpox came from Africa and China. A slave in Boston shared the idea of using inoculation in the early 1700’s when there was a smallpox outbreak. The inoculation with a tiny amount matter from a small pox lesion, called variolation after the smallpox virus known as variola. This caused a milder case of smallpox which then gave that person immunity. Occasionally the person inoculated got much sicker and sometimes died, which made people leery of the practice. This is a fascinating read and involves Cotton Mather of the Salem Witch Trials fame. The story includes conspiracy theories and blame, with slave owners taking ownership for an idea that was not original, and with others dismissive and fearful of African culture. Our culture of disinformation is not so new, after all.Later this concept of inoculation was used in Great Britain to inoculate people with a less virulent (not as dangerous) but related virus (cowpox or vaccinia) to prevent smallpox or variola. It worked and vaccinations were born, named after that first vaccinia inoculation. Now we hope to convince people they are safe and effective and not some conspiracy. Our work is cut out for us.Wash your hands, cover your nose, keep safe six, check your sources.And finally, my caveat is that this is my experience and my opinions, which are subject to change as more information is available, and not related to the organization I work for. Thanks for reading.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Studyhttps://abcnews.go.com/Health/kizzmekia-corbett-african-american-woman-praised-key-scientist/story?id=74679965https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/16/health/kizzmekia-kizzy-corbett-interview-moderna-vaccine-gupta/index.htmlhttps://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/the-african-roots-of-inoculation-in-america-saving-lives-for-three-centuries/https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/from-voter-fraud-to-vaccine-lies-misinformation-peddlers-shift-gears/ |