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We have all seen the recent news that the CDC approved use of the Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 12 year olds. And now there is a push by many authorities to get the shot into young people.
Let’s look at vaccinating kids. First, young people aren’t at any material risk from COVID, certainly no more than the risk from the flu. Of the 760,000 US deaths from COVID, about 2/100’s of 1% were below the age of 13. Clearly a de-minimis risk. So why would any parent stick an arguably experimental drug into the arm of their precious child? Remember, the mRNA vaccine is brand new, a type of vaccine that has never existed before. A young person may need to live with this new drug in their body for over 70 years. Nobody can predict what effect that could ultimately have.
Equally, if not more important, there is some evidence that this vaccine may actually impair one’s natural immune system. We know the vax fades after six months. Now there is a concern in some quarters that the vaccine may inhibit the protective effect of natural immune systems. It is certainly not established science as yet but if you are considering giving your little kid a brand new shot, it’s may be worth considering.
Finally, it should be taken into account that the clinical trial that Pfizer ran encompassed less than 2,500 kids. Many clinical trials often include at least ten times that number. For example, Pfizer had about 43,000 people in its main trial for the vax. As such, this sample set is certainly small, and somewhat disconcerting. In fact, one CDC advisor said, “we are never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it.” In other words, let us experiment on your children.
Every parent needs to decide this on their own, but this is one grandfather (not a doctor) who strongly suggests, outside of necessary medical circumstances, to Just Say No to vaccinating kids.
Tom Joyce
Darien, CT
Editor’s Note: In fact checking this letter, the Connecticut Examiner reached out to Yale School of Medicine, which declined to offer comment, and to UConn Health, which provided the following:
According to Dr. David Banach of UConn Health, while the vaccine does not lower the body’s ability to produce natural antibodies, because the vaccine allows for the production of anti-spike antibodies, the body does not need to produce the same natural antibodies that it would otherwise.
Banach said that the role of antibodies in providing immunity is still not entirely understood, and that the role of nucleocapsid, or N-antibodies, a type of antibody produced by the immune system, is not well understood. He also said that while it is not clear how the vaccine affects the body’s ability to produce N-antibodies over the long term, there was no data to support the conclusion that the vaccine would permanently damage the immune system’s ability to produce these antibodies.