2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XIX
2019
Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV (first named); COVID-2019 (later named
disease); SARS-CoV-2 (final name of the virus causing COVID-2019),
COVID-2019 Pandemic:
January 7, 2021 update Part 19 (Vaccines - Part #3)
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory
Hello and good day to you and yours.
This COVID-19 Update #19 is the companion piece to COVID-19 updates #17 & #18, and forthcoming updates #20 and #21 all of which focus on vaccines. I focus here on the role organizational and educational institutions have to change the course of this pandemic as related to vaccines.
The next update will focus on vaccine reactions. Lastly, I will write about what you, your loved ones and patients/clients can do to help prevent side effects from the vaccine if taken and to mitigate side effects that may arise.
POTENTIAL FAILURE and CONTINUED NEED FOR
A PLAN B
We know that the conventional medicine community has more money than integrative or naturopathic doctor communities do, and therefore more influence. Which means, if looking at only that medical model, there will be more and more vaccines for both prevention and treatment. The vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 are only the most current ones we are hearing, reading and thinking about. And because of all the controversy, anxiety, depression, and just bad time we have all had, this vaccine has garnered more controversy than others.
I have spent the last year describing workable simple options, numerous options really, and also the direction we were going, and that, if unchanged, we would end up with this this vaccine option as Plan A and only Plan A. I will not repeat myself here. The last two updates, this one, and the next two focus on the vaccine issue itself. We are stuck in the pro/con vaccine false dichotomy which has become even more entrenched. A very complex discussion is minimized to soundbites which does a great disservice to all. In these treacherous waters, many individuals and organizations decide to sit out the debate, put their heads down and remain ambiguous. I think this, too, misses the opportunity to help science move forward to help more people. This update is aimed at organizations, trying to give more support to positions they might be able to take today, as a way to build a solid middle, a way to break through the rhetoric, to get to a closer approximation of what really happens.
Let me start with an illustration of a problem from the past, to illustrate why vaccine makers and government officials would do well to engage with naturopathic and integrative physicians soon and more closely.
In 1998, FDA approved a Lyme Disease vaccine LYMErix, with protein antigens from Borrelia burgdorferi. The vaccine rollout failed miserably. It was unclear if the vaccine protected you and how long protection would last. Additionally, you would have had to take multiple doses. Some patients felt they became chronically ill post-vaccine. No one wanted to take the vaccine and it was discontinued. A complete rollout failure.
I believe the COVID-19 vaccine rollout may also fail. It has to do with what was tested, as I mentioned in the previous update. Most of us think of vaccines as a one and done effort or a series and then done. For example, when many of us received the polio vaccine, we had one series and were done. What was measured was how likely are were to become sick and/or how likely are we were to pass the bug to someone else. That is NOT what tested in the initial COVID vaccine trials. The main endpoint tested was how many people became SEVERELY SICK with the virus in the vaccinated group versus the placebo group. But they only measured SICKNESS if you were symptomatic. In other words, they did not test everyone to see if they were getting sick, potentially transmitting the virus, but who may have developed only mild symptoms or those who remained asymptomatic entirely.