A number of people I know have spoken out against the current “vaccine mandate”, that is, the requirement that certain privileges – such as eating at a restaurant – only be available to those who have been fully vaccinated. Their arguments are based on three main points:
- The vaccine mandate is discriminatory, a kind of medical apartheid
- The vaccines are unsafe, or at least insufficiently tested
- The TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) is secretly controlled by “Big Pharma”.
But before I answer those arguments, I want to give a personal response.
Even I was initially slightly hesitant about AstraZeneca, the only vaccine available for me at the time, because of reports of blood clots as a side-effect. However, I then found out what independent, trusted experts in epidemiology and immunology had to say. The overwhelming consensus was that the risk of serious adverse side-effects from AstraZeneca was much smaller (by an enormous factor) than the risk of contracting COVID-19 and becoming seriously ill.
(Incidentally, humans are not good at acting on relative probabilities by instinct, which is why there is a gambling industry and why superstition exists, so we need to be clear-headed about it.)
So, I decided to get AstraZeneca, out of love:
- for those I love (my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my siblings and my close friends)
- for myself
- for my community and, beyond that, for humanity.
Now it’s time to address those three arguments against the vaccine mandate:
1. (“The vaccine mandate is discriminatory.”)
This is a false equivalence. Discrimination (racial, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc.) is based on things out of one’s control. What is commonly called the “vaccine mandate” is just a condition: You can’t do A unless you have B. For example:
You can’t drive a car unless you pass a driver’s test and pay for a licence.
You can’t work with people with disabilities unless you have a current hepatitis vaccination.
2. (“The vaccines are unsafe, or at least insufficiently tested.”)
It is true that anti-COVID-19 vaccines have been developed faster than any other vaccines. However, these vaccines have been taken over 3.7 billion times worldwide. This is the largest medical trial in history.
3. (“The TGA is secretly controlled by ‘Big Pharma’”.)
There is really no such thing as “Big Pharma”. In fact, as Dr David Grimes, from Oxford University, has shown, most conspiracies are mathematically non-viable. For example, if there were a “Big Pharma” conspiracy to hide a cure for cancer, it would be exposed after approximately 3.2 years, due to the sheer number of people required to keep it secret (www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35411684).
If a refusal to be vaccinated affected only the person not being vaccinated, that would be fine. But most of us live in society and have a network of family and friends. If I refused to be vaccinated (for no valid medical reason), I would put others at risk. If, as a consequence, I became sick from COVID-19, or perhaps died, this would have a terrible effect on those I love.
So, in conclusion, to be vaccinated is an act of love.
[Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash]