UUnprecedented collaborative efforts in vaccine development have culminated in the testing of several vaccines in advanced clinical trials, all in less than a year, since global leaders realized they were in the midst of a global pandemic. One is now given to health workers, and another will follow soon.
As the first Covid-19 vaccines are distributed in the United States and other countries around the world, the main question that is now on many minds is “Are these vaccines safe? “
The answer is yes.
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Vaccines are one of the great modern triumphs of public health. They have contributed to the addition of several decades to human life expectancy and are one of the best tools for preventing disease, debilitation and death. Immunizations with vaccines for children prevent between 2 and 3 million deaths each year. They are also one of the best tested and safest products in history.
We know from recent clinical trials with Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for Covid-19 that serious reactions are rare. And, as these vaccines are distributed in the millions, we will gain even greater confidence in their safety and efficacy through post-marketing studies.
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However, it is important to be clear about what “safe” means. No vaccine – indeed, no medical treatment – is completely devoid of side effects. And it is the responsibility of medical professionals to be honest about themselves so that people are trained and have more confidence in science.
Vaccine skepticism has existed since Edward Jenner first immunized an 8-year-old boy against smallpox in 1796.
Reasons range from religious beliefs to centuries of medical exploitation of communities of color and rampant misinformation on social media. In addition, Covid-19 vaccines are being developed, tested and approved at record speeds.
Before a vaccine can be approved for use by the general public, it must go through a careful process in which it is tested on tens of thousands of volunteers. This system is configured to catch all but the rarest side effects. Even after a vaccine is licensed, it is subject to strict safety assessments to detect problems that occur when a vaccine is given to millions of people.
All this complicates the ability of public health leaders to communicate that side effects and adverse reactions to the vaccine are normal, especially when such reactions become headlines, are amplified on social networks and become fodder for conspiracy theories.
In 2009, for example, the H1N1 vaccine, also known as the swine flu vaccine, was associated with an extremely low risk of Guillain-BarrĂ© syndrome, a rare autoimmune condition that causes nerve damage. The researchers calculated that there were 1.6 additional cases of this syndrome for every million people vaccinated. At the time, the CDC made clear communication a priority, holding almost daily briefings on the country’s vaccination campaign as a way to alleviate public concerns about vaccine safety. The United States had learned its lesson in a difficult way: in 1976, an overworked response to a small outbreak of swine flu led to many false stories about the side effects of a newly developed swine flu vaccine.
In other cases, experts found that the risks of a particular vaccine were too expensive to bear. Take RotaShield, the first vaccine developed to prevent rotavirus, a serious gastrointestinal disease in children. The vaccine was licensed in the United States in 1998. A year later, an investigation showed that the vaccine increased the risk of a rare intestinal obstruction by one to two cases in 10,000 vaccinated children. Vaccinations were stopped and the manufacturer withdrew the vaccine.
This experience demonstrates the rigor of vaccine safety and surveillance processes in America and how quickly the authorities act if there is a problem. Second-generation rotavirus vaccines were subsequently authorized and carried out, and post-marketing safety assessments found no increase in the risk of intestinal obstruction.
To be sure, experiment anything the adverse effect or development of a disease from a vaccine – something that is supposed to be prevent disease – can be devastating for individuals and families and should never be taken easily, even against the background of a global pandemic. But the overwhelming benefits of vaccines for individuals and society far outweigh the risks of side effects.
Thanks to vaccines that do this through a strict testing and approval system, infectious diseases that once affected hundreds of thousands of people a year in the U.S. are now extremely rare or, in cases such as smallpox, polio, and rubella, are completely eradicated. . The downside is that once a disease is kept at bay by vaccination, we tend to let our guard down and lose sight of how important vaccines are to keep them that way.
Covid-19 is yet another case in which the risk of not being vaccinated is much higher than the risk of side effects of the vaccine itself. Of the tens of thousands of people who have already been vaccinated, some have reported short-term symptoms such as fever or pain, and a few have reported allergic reactions. Compare it to the virus itself, which has infected more than 70 million people globally and killed about 1.6 million – including more than 300,000 in the United States. This is to say nothing about the devastation caused to economies and health systems around the world.
As the old saying goes, vaccines do not save lives, vaccinations do. The only way to end this ongoing tragedy and return to a certain normal appearance is to organize large-scale vaccination campaigns. This starts by helping people understand – through regular public information and media campaigns – that Covid-19 vaccines are safe, while being clear about potential side effects. It also requires full and continuous transparency by national, state and local authorities and public health officials as more data on these vaccines accumulates.
Only then will we begin to rebuild trust, achieve widespread immunization, and ensure that this virus survives only in our history books.
Wayne C. Koff is the president and executive director of the Human Vaccine Project and an adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard Public Schools TH Chan. Michelle A. Williams is the dean of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Both are members of Human Immunomodial Initiative.