07/20/2020 / By Isabelle Z.
If you listen carefully, you might notice that some big-name vaccine proponents have been backing down on their promises for a coronavirus vaccine.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, along with the World Health Organization, have been promising a shot that will give 7 billion people around the world immunity to COVID-19 and prevent transmission of the disease while causing minimal side effects. Many people have been skeptical from the start considering the poor track record of existing vaccines that have decades of development behind them; why would a rushed vaccine created as part of Operation Warp Speed be any better?
Now, Gates and Fauci have realized the impossibility of the task and are starting to lower people’s expectations, but even these revised expectations are still setting the bar too high.
Gates has been hinting that the vaccine might not prevent transmission of the disease in recent interviews. He said that a vaccine has two aspects, and that the coronavirus vaccine may be better at stopping the vaccinated person from getting the disease than it is at preventing people from transmitting it.
“It’s not guaranteed that the vaccine will be a perfect transmission blocker,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci now says that he thinks 70 percent immunity would be good. When CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen asked what percentage of protection we might expect from the vaccine, he said that although we won’t know without further tests, he warned that he doesn’t think any vaccine can ever be 100 percent effective. He said he would settle for 70 to 75 percent efficacy.
One of the vaccines moving forward in the development process is a joint effort between Oxford University and Big Pharma firm AstraZeneca. The vaccine received £111 million from the British government and they’re manufacturing billions of doses.
Although an animal trial showed that the Oxford vaccine is not effective against COVID-19, AstraZeneca has proceeded to launch human trials. Of course, like most vaccine trials, they won’t be testing it against an inert placebo. Instead, participants in the control group will be given a vaccine known to be reactogenic – the meningitis vaccine – which is a common tactic used in these trials to mask the injuries caused by experimental vaccines.
The meningitis vaccine is no joke, with 50 listed side effects including pneumonia, appendicitis, staphylococcal infection, Cushing’s syndrome, seizures, sepsis, suicidal depression, viral hepatitis, convulsions and death. What vaccine wouldn’t look good compared to that?
Another widely-hyped coronavirus jab, the Moderna vaccine, caused negative side effects in more than half of clinical trial participants. The side effects were dose-dependent, with those receiving higher injection doses experiencing greater side effects. In the high-dose second round vaccinations, 100 percent of the participants experienced systemic and local symptoms, and nearly 100 percent experienced fatigue, myalgia and chills.
Moreover, although it does generate some antibodies in the short term, studies have shown that these antibodies fade rather quickly, defeating the purpose of getting a vaccine in the first place. With some studies showing that coronavirus antibodies can fade within about three months, Moderna’s mRNA vaccine would need to be administered up to four times a year in order for people to enjoy continued high levels of antibodies. However, with the study indicating that each injection sees the vaccine growing more toxic and creating more side effects in people, this route is not only ineffective – it’s also dangerous.
Even having antibodies may not be enough, either. Scientist Dr. William Haseltine said that only 15 percent of people who test positive for antibodies are actually making the neutralizing antibodies that are needed for developing immunity.
With so much working against it, it’s not surprising that even huge vaccine proponents like Bill Gates are dialing back some of their enthusiasm about the possibility of an effective COVID-19 vaccine.
Sources for this article include:
Tagged Under: Anthony Fauci, AstraZeneca, backtracking, bill gates, coronavirus, covid-19, infections, Moderna, outbreak, pandemic, side effects, vaccine, vaccine wars, vaccines
COPYRIGHT © 2017 IMMUNIZATION NEWS