Who’d of thought that an inadequately tested, improperly vetted (Pfizer is stingy with its results) vaccine against a virus that is known to play havoc with the immune system, might have side effects in people with allergies or other immune system issues? Anyone who thought about it.
Today the BBC published an account that two folks with severe allergies have had a bad reaction to the Pfizer vaccine. Buckle up, it’s just starting. A lot of folks are deferring to Anthony Fauci on this, so:
“If I were a person that had an underlying allergic tendency, I might want to be prepared that I might get a reaction and therefore be ready to treat it,”
Anthony Fauci
This exactly raises the point in question. It is why we test vaccines and why we needed to be more realistic about the mRNA vaccines. Not just because they are mRNA, a novel form of vaccine never tested on humans, but because they were first, and the data was incomplete.
Dr. Fauci acknowledged that the problem could turn out to affect a lot of people.
“That’s one of the reasons why it’s important to cover the waterfront with different vaccine platforms,” he said, adding, “If in fact we do find out that there is a consistent issue of a certain subset of people like those with allergic reactions, you’ll always have other vaccine platforms that you can use and hopefully you will not see that with those other platforms.”
We are using England as our large scale test, and we are likely to see other side effects. No one should be surprised by this. All vaccines have side effects. No, autism is one of them if you think it is you are getting your news from the wrong folks. Typically, they are mild, but they can be severe. In the 1970s the US rushed a swine flu vaccine through trials and it had a severe long-term impact. It caused MS in some recipients. How bad was it, 1,500 cases out of 45 million vaccinated. Not bad, all things considered, but not good either.
The job of an adequate testing process is to determine the risk of a vaccine and decide if it is acceptable. A long time ago, physicians and scientists did this for vaccines. They knew there would be a certain level of harm out of the process, but they wanted to define an acceptable level of harm, where the benefit far outweighs the damage done.
Frankly speaking, I don’t know what the medical community decided was an acceptable level of harm. I know that 1,500 cases of MS far exceeds that acceptable damage. If for no other reason than it looks bad in the press. A mild allergic reaction is acceptable. One that requires an EpiPen is not, for no other reason than we found out about this live. What happens if no one tells you there might be a risk and you leave your EpiPen at home? Better hope the clinic, set up in some public building, has one, right?
The word on the street is that Pfizer didn’t see this in their testing. Hmmmm. Funny that, but there are many things that Pfizer hasn’t seen in their testing that show up as very bad when one of their drugs is administered to the public.
The original source for this diary was a NYT article. One of the fun things they revealed:
Pfizer’s vaccine trials, which included tens of thousands of participants, excluded people with a history of reacting badly to vaccines, or having severe allergic reactions to any ingredients in the coronavirus vaccine.
Yeah, a vaccine based on a virus known to result in some interesting immune reactions was not tested on folks who have allergic reactions. And then that vaccine was widely distributed. Well, all I can say is, God save the Queen, as always, I appreciate the Brits and their willingness to go first.
The take-home message. Understand that vaccines have risks, all of them. Understand that in the head-long rush, we are not discussing side effects in any meaningful way. Understand that Corona uniquely messes with our immune response (it would be better to say that our immune response does not cope well with Coronavirus at times). That makes it likely that you may see funny immune outcomes in some patients. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a vaccine, but it also doesn’t mean we should walk blithely into a vaccination without thinking carefully about what we are getting. Understand that mRNA vaccines are novel and that other long-term impacts may show up if you chose this vaccine.