Medicine is an art. There are large factions inside the medical community that want to sterilize the profession from any sense of personal attachment, or the emotions involved in decision making. The practice of medicine is rife with algorithms that indicate the appropriate labs, referrals, images or treatments based on updated research. What those flow charts often miss is the element of patient autonomy.
In several recent exchanges I have been having on various social media platforms, I have continued to promote autonomy regarding the new SARS-CoV-2 vaccines while still trying to educate about what we understand about their safety.
I continue to have to repeat myself, and it is frustrating.
At the risk of repeating myself, there is no indication masks ever worked. The continued promotion of their wear, especially after receiving vaccines, was theater and optics. It was never “about the science.” This is similarly associated with the lockdowns, which did not “slow the spread,” and the social distancing. These measures were never about the science, because they started from an unfalsifiable premise.
Science is about making a claim of truth about the environment that is falsifiable.
When it comes to masks, the falsifiable claim cannot be that masks stop the virus. Any spread of the virus in the community while people were wearing masks was blamed on non-compliance or engendered responses that it would have been much worse. Those are unverifiable claims on truth that are based on emotion, and not fact.
The falsifiable, and therefore scientific claim, would have been to say that masks do not help, and then indicate verifiable data that proves they reduced, slowed or stopped the transmission of the virus.
Fortunately, we had a series of case studies with varying degrees of mandates and open communities, as well as studies in those various locations to provide compliance data, which indicate there is no difference between wearing masks and not wearing masks. I shared the hypothetical view that they may reduce inoculum, which might reduce bad infections, hospitalizations and deaths, but those same aggregated data do not bear that out either.
Saying that lockdowns would stop the spread was also not verifiable. All states that forced draconian lockdowns that then still had similar infection rates to their less draconian neighbors blamed it on unverifiable complaints. The scientific method would have required that we posit lockdowns don’t work and look for data proving otherwise.
Again, we are fortunate that some countries and varying states had different measures. Although it seems that early stoppage in travel, meaning shutting down tourism and international travel may have kept the virus out of places like New Zealand, once the virus was within the borders, it seems to have no concern for lockdown measures. Regardless of method or compliance, the virus seems to simply have a cycle that exists apart from countermeasures.
So on vaccines, I want to make the case for science. To say we have no proof there are no side effects is to turn the scientific method on its head. To prove that something doesn’t exist means we have to start from the assumption that it does exist. This is something we have no information verifying, and forces vaccine proponents, like myself, to prove the negative.
That isn’t how science works.
The scientific method would be to make a falsifiable claim that can be falsified by finding things that do exist.
It would look something a lot more like “the vaccines are safe and have no adverse effects.”
Then the goal would be to find effects related to the vaccines. It cannot also be falsified merely by reporting events or claiming events. The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) is intended to act as a repository for anyone and everyone to report events occurring after receiving the vaccines. The point is to cast a wide net to start looking for any side effects that may be caused by vaccines and then to determine if they are caused by or related to the vaccines.
The very rare clotting events associated with some of the traditional technology vaccines, like Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca were discovered this way. So the system works.
We distract from the science if we claim the studies aren’t done yet or we are waiting for them to be completed. They will never, truly, be completed. Public health and medical communities are constantly observing the trends to look for associations so we can better treat patients and our communities.
Those are not “scientific” positions.
That does not mean they are not wise or that they are not reasonable. They simply aren’t scientific.
What is most important is to note they don’t have to be. Science does not get to remark on your autonomy. It can indicate that the vaccines are safe, which they are, and it can indicate they will increase community, or herd, immunity which will reduce the spread and adverse outcomes related to the contagion they are built for…which they do. What science can never do is indicate what is best for an individual or whether the rights of the majority should supersede the rights of the minority.
Those are not scientific areas of expertise and the most scientific answer would merely be to suggest or to inform and let people make their choice.
Treating patients is a complicated relationship of looking at what the data indicates and informing the patient, making a recommendation, and then allowing the patient to decide. That is why it is called the art of medicine. Science doesn’t get to decide if a patient receives a vaccine. It has no authority in the life of the individual, and none of us are entirely rational creatures.
Problems arise, though, when we claim to be. Everyone seeks to position themselves as an objective authority choosing their path based on only objective data. It causes us to lie, seek confirmation bias, and to disparage others who disagree with us.
It isn’t science, though.
The vaccines are safe, because there is no data indicating they are unsafe. If you are waiting for more data because you are concerned about undiscovered, long-term effects of the vaccines, you are reasonable, but not scientific. Science doesn’t have that data, and in the absence of proof there are side effects, you are making a determination based on belief, or risk reduction, or fear, or any other emotional aspect of normal human decision making.
You are still reasonable, if you choose that path, but pointing to the VAERS website as proof of side effects “caused” by the vaccines or of random reports people died after the vaccine as proof they are “killing” patients is not science.
We embarrass ourselves when we engage in this sort of fear mongering and it would behoove everyone to admit the real reasons for their decision. If you are refusing the vaccine because you aren’t afraid of the virus, then great. If you are refusing it because you are afraid of unknown side effects, then fantastic. If you are refusing it based on the principle of it, and desiring to practice autonomy, I support you.
You can decline the vaccine for any reason you choose, but claiming it is based on the science is a lie.
Just be honest.
Vaccine technology was, perhaps, the single greatest technological achievement in medicine during human existence. Antibiotics were pretty incredible as well, but vaccines allowed society to harness the power of their immune system to attack deadly viruses and contagions at their source…us.
Being anti-vaccine and trying to base that perspective on science makes you very anti-science. Embracing the technology and declining based on any other reason I listed, or others, makes you human. Nothing is more important in our relationships with one another than embracing and admitting our humanity.
Just stop trying to use science as a weapon to bludgeon your tribal opponents with.
That isn’t science.
I have made a challenge to those I have had these discussions with. Point me to a single, verified, vaccine-caused death from one of the mRNA vaccines. Every one of those saying there are side effects cannot name a single alleged victim. I haven’t met them yet.
Now, perhaps you are unwilling to learn the scientific method or how to formulate an appropriate hypothesis. That doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun with science. You can get a whole series of cool stuff to do that is even child appropriate if you want to have an activity to do with the kids.
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