COVID Chronicles: Stupid, Lame Excuses (Vaccine Wars Part III)
We continue our COVID Chronicles series. In this episode, Vince reloads the AK-47 of scientific proof and mows down the anti-vaccine cult with the third part of the “Vaccine Wars”.
The current COVID19 pandemic certainly has billions of people in a tizzy. Nearly two years after the first stage of this pandemic (as of the date of this post), and we’re still struggling with this virus and the multi-faceted disease it causes. Enough has been made previously (by myself, my colleague Chaim, and others around the country) that if the truth had been told to the public early on, instead of hiding truth and politicizing the whole pandemic, we may have been done with it by now.
Theory of Stupidity
But you can’t stop people from being stupid, thus proving that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity lives and breathes in the politicians around this country, and in various countries around the world, as well as many in the liberal and conservative “rank-and-file.”
Speaking of stupid, I mentioned that this time I wanted to list all the stupid arguments that frankly stupid people make as excuses for not receiving a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.
I want to preface this by saying that from a medical standpoint, the vaccine is not appropriate for every single individual on earth. There are a few legitimate medical reasons why people should not be vaccinated with these, or other vaccines – a few, far fewer in number than the legitimate reasons for persons not using a face mask.
I’m not discussing those reasons here, as people with concerns of “does my medical condition qualify for a vaccine exemption?” should consult their medical provider.
Misusing Religious Exemptions
Religious exemptions are much more vague in nature. Most religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and a great many Christian denominations and sects including traditionalist sects such as Mennonites and Amish, don’t prohibit vaccination. However, a very few Christian sects including Dutch Reformed and “faith-healing” sects, have in the past indicated distaste for their adherents receiving any vaccines as they consider them to be interfering with the concept of the body as “G-d’s temple”.
The problem with claiming religious exemption is that since no mainline religion or denomination has actually come out publicly and openly denounced mass vaccination, individuals have simply claimed that their personal religious convictions don’t “allow” them to receive a vaccine.
It’s a religious mine field, but in reality such people claiming these exemptions are misusing G-d for their own selfish purpose, using G-d as an convenient excuse by saying He “prohibits” them from certain actions, when the reality is that the person him or herself just doesn’t want to get a vaccine.
A good parallel would be “I must be made exempt from wearing a seat belt in my car, because the seat belt chafes my body, and my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and damage to my body is against my religion.” Such claims are a gross misuse of G-d’s name, thus a violation of the Third Commandment. Realistically, there are even fewer legitimate “religious exemptions” for vaccination than there are medical exemptions.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped people from receiving “religious exemption” letters from their pastors or ministers. But these are mostly lame excuses from people just trying to obtain a “free pass” to avoid a current vaccine, even though those same people likely never objected to the volume of vaccines they received prior to this pandemic, from their childhood on until now.
Excuses, Excuses
Beside the number of people trying to obtain free passes to avoid either imposed or impending vaccine “mandates” by attempting to claim religious or medical exemptions, let’s review many of the other excuses I’ve come across that don’t necessarily try to claim “G-d told me”, but are similarly rooted in false belief, deliberate con, and/or junk pseudo-science.
I’m sure this isn’t going to be an exhaustive list, and they’re in no particular order, but I’m including below all of the arguments I’ve encountered so far against specifically the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations, and some facts that debunk the arguments. I’d encourage anyone who’s heard (or maybe believe) something that isn’t in this list, to comment below (please be aware that Chaim moderates comments so while he would post them, they won’t show up immediately).
“These vaccines are experimental / they’re not proven!”
Another version of this excuse is “they rushed these out without testing.” This is a twisting of the truth about the mRNA technology.
While it is true that no other mRNA-based vaccines have received FDA approval prior to the two commercially-available mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, this fact does not equal “the vaccine is experimental”. The fallacy of equating correlation with causation is heavily used among anti-vaccine conspiracy believers.
People clinging to this excuse simply don’t understand how the FDA drug approval process works – it is typically slow and methodical. Here are the facts that prove the “experimental” argument wrong.
Long history of study and advancement
The existence of messenger RNA was identified in the mid-20th century, and its capabilities for use in vaccines were widely postulated in the 1980’s. Many subsequent studies have shown viability of the technology in mRNA technology for various applications, including for vaccination against viruses where other technologies had either failed or had poor performance.
All the research has led to several vaccines and treatments utilizing mRNA technology, including uses against Ebola virus, rabies, and Zika virus. There are several mRNA vaccines currently in the standard FDA approval process “pipeline“, after proof-of-concept mRNA vaccines had already been developed and tested (or currently in trials). Final product development and approval processes for the ones in the FDA approval pipeline were all started prior to the COVID pandemic, so it cannot be claimed that the Pfizer/BioNTech & Moderna vaccines were the “first” mRNA vaccines, they just were the first to be approved by the FDA for SARS-CoV-2.
Rapid production
Why were they able to be made so quickly though? There are two good reasons for this.
First, the FDA already has sufficient proof of safety and efficacy with the mRNA vaccines already in the pipeline in order to validate the findings of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna studies on their vaccines, and other vaccines were already in either proof-of-concept or in production which established the process before 2020.
Second, the fast-moving SARS-CoV-2 virus spreading around the world on a scale on par with the 1918 influenza virus pandemic, underscored the need to approve these products in a “fast-track” manner – a process that the FDA has had in existence for decades, so again the fast-tracking of the COVID vaccine approvals is nothing new or unique.
The basic tech behind the vaccine remains essentially the same; the ease of which the RNA segment for any particular virus can be introduced, and the ease and lower cost of manufacture and mass-production of this technology makes mRNA vaccine technology truly the “wave of the future.”
“There are microchips / nanochips in the vaccine!”
This excuse is often cited under a mistaken belief that the government wants to use the vaccines to track peoples’ movements. Fake videos had surfaced on social media sites including TikTok and YouTube purporting to show magnets sticking to peoples’ arms after receiving the mRNA vaccines, supposedly proving that microchips are in the vaccines.
The reality is, the placing of nanochips in literally billions, perhaps trillions, of individual vaccine doses, would not only “break the bank” of every nation, it’s also absolute science FICTION.
Technology doesn’t even exist on Earth
Nanochip technology of the size required to be placed in a vaccine, let alone on the scale required to be placed in trillions of vaccine doses, does not even exist on Earth.
People who are legitimately concerned that the government would track them from the receipt of a vaccine, should instead stop using debit or credit cards, shut off their Internet, and give up their cell phones, since those are things that we know the government can use to actually track us if they wanted to, regardless of our knowledge or consent.
Much as many of us would like to think we’re someone big and special, the stark reality is that very few of us are actually important enough to the government’s intelligence services for them to waste time tracking us.
“Vaccines cause autism!”
This fallacy was completely and soundly debunked over 20 years ago, and one-time “doctor” Andrew Wakefield, the lying piece-of-horse-dung schmuck who claimed to have so-called “proof” of this, was totally proven a to be a liar – he falsified the entire data set for his research published in Lancet that stirred up the belief, and was found later to have been paid by attorneys intent on suing vaccine manufacturers, to publish a paper that would support the lawsuits.
No one had been able to duplicate his supposed findings, and in fact significant numbers of studies done subsequent to his original paper, proved conclusively that there was absolutely ZERO link between the MMR vaccine (which Wakefield was targeting) and autism.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop people from continuing to believe this fallacy, and it continues to this day to be pushed like a drug by extremely-far-right conspiracy theorists such as Steve Kirsch and Stew Peters.
This unscientific garbage keeps popping up every time some news story comes out about someone who has had a serious reaction to any vaccine. Such people seem to conveniently forget that there is a risk in everything we do, and the use of vaccines is no different in this regard, as jumping in your car for a road trip. Sure, you have a really good chance of getting to your destination with no problems, but there’s always that chance you’re going to hit a deer, get T-boned by a drunk driver, or get a flat tire. That’s life.
“It’s going to alter my DNA!”
This argument is often combined with the “they’re tracking us” argument and a claim about a “Lucifer gene” that I’ll expose later. The claim is pure junk pseudo-science.
This claim gained steam after videos from two supposed physicians – a Dr Carrie Madej and a Dr Christiane Northrup – surfaced with each claiming that the mRNA vaccines alter DNA. Each of their arguments were similar, but each relied on an absolute misrepresentation of the relationship, structure, nature, and location of RNA and DNA in the human body cells, how mRNA vaccine technology actually operates (see Vaccine Wars Part II), and a deliberate preying on public ignorance to falsely equate coronaviruses – that do not alter human DNA – with other viruses that do, such as HIV and HPV.
Science deniers
The claims that such misinformation peddlers push, directly contradict decades of known molecular and genomic science. But because the average person has little or no knowledge of biology, this is a perfect example of how maliciously-minded people can take a tiny bit of truth, wrap it up in a huge bunch of dog excrement, and call it science.
To be clear, our bodies are full of messenger RNA in general, as this is the type of single-stranded RNA segment that contains instructions to various types of cells for how to make various types of proteins. But by twisting the truth about how our own mRNA works, these so-called (I’ll charge that they are actually incompetent and probably former) “physicians” can create all kinds of scary scenarios and fear among anyone uneducated about the process enough to be taken in by their deliberate lies.
Lie debunked by the truth
This type of claim is easily debunked when we realize how this all actually works. To be clear, let me reiterate the process. Just like all the other mRNA in our bodies that contains instructions to our cells on how to make a wide variety of proteins essential to various functions in our body, the mRNA segment used in the vaccine is the “recipe” for how the cell can make a protein that resembles the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein, so that the immune system can recognize it and start immediately creating antibodies specifically against SARS-CoV-2.
Once the vaccine enters your muscle where it’s been injected, the mRNA segment in the vaccine gets exposed, and within the area of a cell called the cytoplasm, the “recipe” is read, and the protein creation process begins. When this process starts, the body no longer needs the mRNA and it’s eliminated from the body, because the instructions were already “read”, thus creating the protein that the immune system will recognize as consistent with SARS-CoV-2.
This whole process doesn’t introduce an actual virus into us, but instructs our immune system to see what the spike protein looks like, so that if/when we get exposed to the actual virus, the immune system can call up that specific antibody, and fight off the virus itself. None of this protein creation process takes place in the nucleus of our cells, thus it is physically impossible for any substance from the mRNA vaccines to have any chance at all of altering or modifying our body’s DNA. Period.
“It’s got the Luciferase in it, therefore they’re evil!”
Yep, I laughed at that one, too. This argument stems from (you guessed it) stupid people who believe everything that their sociopolitical echo chamber wants to tell them, and basically claims that the Moderna vaccine contains “luciferase”. Some versions claim it’s “luciferin” in a “66.6 solution.”
However, these claims have been soundly debunked.
“The vaccine will make my body make the virus.”
Sometimes this has been modified with “it’ll make my body make spike proteins.” Both are variants of the same fallacy. Since the mRNA vaccines do not contain actual virus, but instead a messenger RNA segment that simply tells our body how to make the protein that matches what the actual virus’s spike protein looks like, the vaccines neither force the body to make the actual virus and get you sick, nor its own full spike protein of actual virus.
“The vaccine injects me with foreign antibodies!”
People who believe this simply don’t know how vaccines work, much less how the immune system works.
If the vaccine introduced antibodies not created by the body they’re being injected into, the immune system of that body would recognize the antibodies as foreign, and work to neutralize them, as it does with any pathogen.
The only way that the vaccines can work to provide the body immunity is for the body to make its own antibodies. No vaccine introduces external antibodies.
Monoclonal antibody drugs are different
However, recent medical advances have created a series of “monoclonal antibody” (mAb) treatments and drugs, which do introduce a specific antibody type to the body, thus allowing the body to more easily mark a virus for destruction, and start fighting off what you’re sick from.
Interestingly, monoclonal antibody technology is a widening field which is being utilized in the treatment of various diseases and disorders from arthritis, to migraines, and certain cancers. I’d love to know how many anti-vaxxers who believe the “vaccine injects me with foreign antibodies” claim, probably use mAb’s on a regular basis – if they don’t believe me, they could check their drugs to see if the medication ends in -omab, -ximab, -zumab, or -umab; those are common suffixes for monoclonal antibody drugs.
“The vaccines use aborted fetal cells!”
This is the favorite fallacy of those who want to use some sort of religiously-based objection to vaccination. It’s first important to stress a difference that the objectors ignore.
There is a difference between fetal tissue, and fetal cell lines. Fetal tissue is exactly what it implies – taking any of a variety of actual tissue from an actually aborted or otherwise demised fetus – such tissue is only viable for a certain time, and implies a recently aborted or demised fetus.
Fetal cell lines, in contrast, are cells that maintain viability decades after the abortion (whether intentional or spontaneous is irrelevant). While it is true that a number of vaccines, drugs, and other medical treatments, use long-established fetal cell lines in the research process, the final products contain neither cells nor tissue from actual aborted fetuses.
Therefore, you’re not “eating a baby” when you take that Motrin, and you’re not being injected with baby cells when you get a vaccine.
“I don’t need vaccines, my body will take care of me / I have natural immunity!”
These are two variants of the same fallacy. Though our immune system is incredibly robust in general, it can only do so much. Here’s the indisputable fact:
If you haven’t been exposed to a particular pathogen in the past, there’s no way for your immune system to immediately recognize that pathogen and neutralize it.
Pathogen exposure and immunological memory
Thus, while your immune system will certainly recognize that novel pathogen as foreign to you and it will mount its defenses to combat it, without a memory of what that pathogen is, your ability to fight off the pathogen without getting sick is slim to none. Once your body has been infected, the immune system will then remember that pathogen and be in a position to mount a better, more robust defense next time. This is the basis of a well-established concept in immunology called “immunological memory”.
If your body has never experienced the virus before, you will very likely get sick. Depending on the pathogen and the severity of its effect on you, your illness could range anywhere from you feeling like crap for a few days, to you dying from the disease. Your body needs to know what the pathogen is, in order for you to fight it off effectively.
Misunderstading “natural immunity”
The term that certain Republicans (I’m not one of those kinds of Republicans) and other anti-vaccine people have been tossing around these days is “natural immunity”. But we have to be careful when using that term, because it does not mean what many of these people either claim or are being conned into believing it claims.
From a scientific/medical standpoint, “natural immunity” refers to immunity derived from infection. In other words, in order to obtain “natural immunity”, you need to be infected. That literally is the only way to obtain “natural immunity” – you become infected, your body’s immune system starts working, and creates antibodies specific to the pathogen, and creates a memory of the pathogen. That “memory”, is natural immunity.
Not born with it
We were not born with all the immunity we’d ever need – which is why people from infancy through old age, receive vaccines for many known pathogens from measles to polio, and many in between.
Recall the 2009-10 Influenza H1N1 pandemic: it mainly struck young people, those who had not been exposed to H1N1 previously, because the last significant H1N1 (“swine flu”) outbreak was in the 1970’s, thus people born in the 1980’s and onward at that time, were at greater risk. Fortunately, that epidemic was short-lived (a little over a year) because we had the technology to swiftly manufacture a vaccine specific to that virus. It was also short-lived because the CDC did everything right, rapidly taking control of the response. Thus, we only had about 25,000 fatalities in the US.
No previous protection
With the SARS-CoV-2 virus, none of us in the world had ever been exposed to previously. Thus, we all literally had no protection. Thus the only way to create immunity was to get sick and hope to G-d you survived (which fortunately for us, the worldwide mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 is still less than 3%), and thus you obtained “natural immunity”, or to get vaccinated against the virus, and thus obtain “acquired immunity.”
“There are DNA fragments in the vaccines!”
This excuse sometimes comes with a “mRNA vaccines will cause cancer” claim, somewhat distinct from the “altering human DNA” excuse debunked earlier.
The false claim stems from a misrepresentation of prior research that documents no inherent danger to the presence of DNA fragments in vaccines, even if found.
There’s a variation of this excuse, claiming that SV40, simian vacuolating virus 40 (or simian virus 40) is used in the manufacture of the mRNA vaccines, while some claims state that the mRNA vaccines were contaminated with SV40.
Both claims are false.
The claim of SV40 contamination in vaccines does have some truth, though the truth is very old. Some supplies of Polio vaccine were found to be contaminated with SV40… but that was back between 1955 and 1961. Extensive longitudinal testing and study failed to demonstrate any excess cancer rates due to the contamination.
But the “DNA contamination” false claims from the anti-vax crowd keep popping up. The resurgence of these claims were spurred by Florida Surgeon General Dr Joseph Ladapo, who doubled down on his deliberately malicious vaccine misinformation campaign from his office, by including the “DNA fragment” folly in a December 2023 letter by him to the FDA, criticizing their oversight of the mRNA vaccines.
On behalf of legitimate medical professionals everywhere, I’ll have no problem accusing Dr Ladapo of being a fraud and a quack who shouldn’t be representing the medical community at all. He is a shame.
Wow, That’s A Lot of Lame Excuses
Wow, that’s a lot of lame excuses from lame people who believe whatever their Q-Anon conspiracy-theory liars tell them. But hopefully, if you were on the fence about any one of them, I’ve given you the facts to be able to discount all of the lies.
If you know of any others you’ve heard, please leave a comment below and I and/or Dr Chaim will provide evidence to debunk them here.
Author’s note: subsequent to publication, this post was edited to add the “DNA Fragments” excuse.
Author’s note: for convenience, we have created a page containing links to evidence, studies, articles, and other references completely debunking all anti-vaccine cult claims. Click here to access this public page.
Next: The Pandemic is Over
