Some of the misinformation out there regarding the COVID-19 vaccination is the covid vaccine does not
cause the actual COVID infection, COVID-19 Vaccination does not cause
any or is not associated with loss of fertility and the vaccination does not
interact or integrate with your own DNA. We know that COVID-19 does
kill people, but the vaccination will definitely protect you and it'll help us get back to,
you know, the normal things that we're used to pre pandemic in terms of, you know, visiting
with family members, social gatherings, being able to kiss and hug our loved ones and be more social.
Vaccines and fertility - so there's been lots of questions about fertility and vaccines and
especially related to the COVID-19 vaccine and I think it's interesting. So, the origin
of this sort of conceptualization surrounds the publication of a letter in the European Medicine
Agencies back in the summer of 2020 and that agency is very similar to our American FDA,
sort of the same equivalent. So, it was two anti-vaxxers and they published this data or
this this question I guess (they didn't have any data) but question surrounding the spike
protein and they said ‘oh, the MRNA vaccine makes you make a spike protein,’ and they knew that
there's a spike protein that's in the placenta that helps connect the fetus to the blood flow.
These spike proteins are not the same, they do not look the same, they do not act the same.
Nothing about the COVID spike protein is in any way related to this spike protein
that is on the placenta, but these folks used that information and I think the uneducated,
the population’s and lack of knowledge about the fact that spike proteins could be different
and ran with it and just created mass hysteria on social media. This is false. There is no
connection between infertility and men or women and any of the vaccines and actually the V Safe
data, which is the data that's recorded currently in the United States for COVID vaccines - there
are 30,000 women who were vaccinated who were found to be pregnant after vaccination and in
that group they have a lower rate of stillborn miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes,
intrauterine growth restriction and pre-eclampsia and eclampsia - all of them - than in the
non-vaccinated group and what I will tell people is ‘COVID will hurt your baby COVID will hurt you
and COVID may cause infertility, right? Having long-term, long periods without oxygen with
being in hospitals, all of those things are not good for moms or babies so vaccine is the
thing that you can do to protect both yourself and your children from COVID in the future.
So, some of the common side effects of receiving the vaccinations are swelling and pain
and redness around the site of the injections, some low-grade fevers, fatigue,
chills and some GI upset. These symptoms last about 12 to 48 hours. Know that when you get your
vaccination you will be asked to stay about 15 to 30 minutes just so that we can monitor any other
potential life-threatening, though rare reactions like any allergic reactions or things like that.
All right so why do some people get symptoms after the vaccine and some people don't?
So, the symptoms are from your body's response to the vaccination.
Everybody's immune system is different. The vaccination
stimulates your body to produce antibodies and that level of antibodies that are in
your system - your body reacts very differently. So, how does getting the COVID vaccination compare
to actually getting the COVID infection? So, you guys are young and typically, I mean, young people
do get the milder symptoms of COVID like we have discussed before, But I will tell you I'm an
intensivist in the medical ICU and I have seen a lot of young people get really bad disease,
shortness of breath, respiratory failure, they're on the ventilator with multi-organ failure, have
a catastrophic neurologic blood clot. So, this is a dangerous disease, and it can affect you.
So, I would recommend getting the vaccination. It's a lot better, trust me.
Does the vaccine affect people differently if they've had COVID or not and I will answer this by
saying we don't 100 know the answer to this. Part of the problem is people get COVID just like all
viruses, right, and this is the conceptualization of ‘why did my son get the flu and he had a fever
of 104 and was sick for seven days, my daughter got the exact same thing and she had, you know,
a headache for two days?’ so just like you can get a virus and have a different immune response
we know that with any virus, with COVID you could get it and have a differing immune response.
In theory, the more antibodies that you have produced from your exposure, we suspect the
worse or the more symptomatology you might have with your vaccine,
which is why people tend to experience more symptoms with boosters than they do with first
doses because they already have some antibodies. So, in theory, people who have had COVID may have
more side effects from each of their shots, but it all depends on how far out you are
from your infection and what your antibody response was and since we don't measure those
except in research trials, we would have no way of knowing that on an individual basis.
When people talk about vaccine technology and novel technologies and technologies that have
been around for long periods of time, I think it's important to remember that just because something
hasn't been on market doesn't mean it hasn't been done in basic sciences and research labs
and areas of other use. So, because we haven't used something in a vaccine doesn't mean we
haven't used it in a medicine, doesn't mean we haven't used it in many other
types and ways throughout healthcare. So, the new technology that people talk about with this with
COVID are the MRNA technologies and I think because people oftentimes don't fully understand
how DNA and RNA and MRNA’s work, it scares them a little because they think that it might be doing
something to their own DNA and I can assure you that a messenger RNA vaccine will in no
way ever affect your own personal DNA, RNA or any of those things but there are other alternatives.
The Johnson and Johnson is an antigen antibody, sort of the old school
way that we've done vaccines for the last 100 years and those do not contain MRNA,
so if you're uncomfortable that is also an option. I would tell you that most of the
people in healthcare are absolutely in awe of the MRNA technology and think that not only is
it a superior way to vaccinate but a safer one and probably going to offer longer-term
immunity than our traditional ways and that all vaccines will probably be MRNA in the future.
When they do the trials, they look at levels of antibody production after the first shot and if
the levels of antibody production don't reach a certain level or don't sustain for a certain
amount of time then those shots require a booster. Why some viruses and bacteria and things of that
nature affect the immune system in a way that require a huge antigen antibody response versus
not is still not fully understood but almost every shot if you think about it requires a booster. At
some point, even your tetanus shot. At 10 years you get a tetanus booster every 10 years right,
so the concept of boosters is not something that's foreign in vaccines.
In general, how old do you have to be to get the vaccinations?
So, for the Pfizer vaccination you have to be greater than
16 years of age, for Moderna and Johnson and Johnson, you have to be older than 18.
Okay so what is a variant when we talk about variants, we're talking about changes in the viral
presentation. So we've known about variations in influenza for years, right? That's why every year
they're sort of a different h1n1, h2n3 - it has to do with the proteins on the surface changing.
For flu, for COVID, we know that there are some things that are going on within that virus that
are changing the way it looks. This is not new information. Every single virus in the history
of research and history of mankind's scientific awareness of viruses has evolved and changed.
The variants are ones that we know have changed in a way that's sort of changing the way that
they affect humans or the way that they become infectious and so those are why we're calling them
the variants but truly all viruses have variations and mutations and change rapidly and that's why
many vaccines for viruses have to be altered and changed and repeated so that you're making sure
If you're on the fence on whether or not to get the vaccination what I would
recommend you do is do your research. Go to information that is credible, that has
evidence and data not merely just people's personal opinions. So, for those of you that
are on the fence what I would say is that it's important to remember yes as young, healthy people
the symptoms that you might get with COVID infection might be less than many
of the ones you've seen in the news but if you won't get vaccinated for yourself do
it for the people you love. Do it for your grandmother, do it for your aunt, do it for
that kid in your neighborhood who has an immune suppressing disease that you don't know about,
do it for that kid who sits next to you in class who had a kidney transplant and they haven't told
you yet, right, because even though it may not affect you, it affects all of us and every one of
us that gets vaccinated means the sooner we can go back to football games, means the sooner we can go
back to Keeneland, means the sooner we can go back to public schools in session at full capacity.
It means the sooner we can all go back to our lives the way they were before this and until
we get some sort of herd immunity and can control this virus for the people who are most vulnerable,
we're not going to be able to do that. So, you all getting vaccinated is a huge part of that puzzle.
So really great websites to go to get adequate or correct information
would be the CDC website (the Center of Disease Control and Prevention is a good one). The HOA,
the World Health Organization is pretty good and so is the NIH (the National Institute of Health
Science and Technology). They're pretty good at keeping you updated and giving you some of the
or addressing some of the myths out there in terms of COVID vaccinations and COVID infections.
Well, public experts are calling the vaccine the best line of a defense against COVID-19 infection
because it's the best way that we can get back to our pre-pandemic normalcy in terms of
sharing our lives with the loved ones and families and friends that we're used to.