Disarm the prejudice about vaccines | The investment …

I want to talk to those who don’t want to be vaccinated with COVID 19 vaccines.

Throughout history, people have always feared vaccines because of their potential side effects, which are usually insignificant and more publicized than the impact of their benefits.. I think it happens because until we are sick we are not aware of the consequences of serious diseases for which there are vaccines.

I remember when I was little walking around with a necklace of camphor pills when there was the polio epidemic and the story of a boyfriend from my neighborhood Sarandí who recovered from the illness but with a limp that lasted his entire life. The Salk vaccine has appeared, which has saved millions of children around the world and continues on the immunization schedule until now.

The measles vaccine also generated a lot of resistance in the 1970s because it produced enough “symptoms” for its application, and many of us had suffered it without great consequences. Most of us weren’t aware of death “from measles encephalitis / pneumonia” (not so much information).

Another vaccine with bad press is the vaccine against HPV, a viral infection so common and hidden that almost 90% of the human population is known to have it unknowingly.. But It must be said that if the entire world population were vaccinated, cancer of the cervix in women would disappear and cancers of the mouth, throat and tongue would decrease to 5% (more or less).

What about this coronavirus vaccine? : what are the fears? The main concern is that they were investigated in a short period of time. I’ll try to explain how and what affects speed in studies:

1) Surveys never start from ZERO, there is accumulated experience in other recently manufactured vaccines such as Ebola (developed by the same Russian institute that developed Sputnik V against Covid19).

2) There is an accumulation of new technologies applied to cancer treatments that have been used, for example, in the so-called Oxford vaccine.

3) Vaccine research phases are nearing completion: a) Phase 1: know if they are safe (this is the first thing that was studied in the first phase and it is the most important) In medicine we learn that the most important thing and the first is “do no harm” .

b) Phase 2: the vaccine is applied to a small number of volunteers: 100 to 500 and its safety and efficacy are tested.

vs) Phase 3: do a so-called blind, randomized and randomized study What does this mean? Volunteers and vaccinators do not know if they are vaccinating or administering a placebo (which is physiological solution) and monitor all people the same and see if there are any side effects, measure the antibodies generated by the vaccine , measure their quantity and see how long they serve.

The big difference is in the duration of the immunity generated and not in its adverse effects with the vaccines generated in time without emergency due to the pandemic. It is normally thought that if the presence of antibodies and protection against disease lasts for at least 1 year (such as influenza), you get vaccinated every year, or like other vaccines such as hepatitis, it can last 10 years or a lifetime, or anti-tetanus drugs that if they give you 3 doses you are vaccinated for 10 years.

We won’t know now, this is the only difference with other vaccines previously studied because they had more control time.. This will be done because the phase 3 controls are planned for 2 years. So, in a year, we will surely know which of the vaccines which are in the race “will stay” and which will not, because perhaps their effectiveness lasts only 6 months, but in the meantime we will have served to eradicate the pandemic. .

What I mean is it doesn’t matter today, what matters is that at least it keeps you from getting sick within 3-6 months of vaccination.

Regarding the Sputnik V vaccine, I want to write a special paragraph because a special “resistance” has also been generated: The National Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology Gamaleya of Russia is a world leader, it was founded in 1869, it was the second institute in the world that vaccinated against rabies in 1886. They use a DNA vector platform to generate the vaccines already known and proven around the world like the 2 Ebola vaccines in 2015. The Sputnik V vaccine has this same already proven platform, it is assembled on this basis already proven effective and safe over the years.

When vaccines are considered safe by laboratories and scientists, they are not simply given to the public. National and international regulatory bodies, read ANMAT (in Argentina) or FDA (in the United States), are usually scientific and bureaucratic bodies that take their time to analyze new drugs or vaccines. This is true, but under these conditions they also feel the obligation to work and analyze the results of studies as quickly as very seriously, as they are being observed by all at this time.

In general in the pharmaceutical industry These are big companies that make millions and what matters most to them are their profits. In fact, along with the war industry, it is one of the most profitable industries on the planet. That said, it must also be said that the companies involved and the laboratories linked to the governments that manufacture the vaccines are of the first international level and this time they were researching and producing at risk, that is to say before the studies in phase 3. From this, we can deduce that if they started to produce vaccines, it is because previous research was already promising. The rush in this case is facing an increasingly out of control pandemic.

Although the young are sometimes asymptomatic, they can infect. As part of mass vaccinations, those who do not get vaccinated can keep the virus in circulation socially, avoiding community immunity. Those who have not been vaccinated can be vectors of regrowth, re-infecting loved ones who have already passed the vaccine’s period of effectiveness.

It is true that this virus may or may not kill, and may or may not have respiratory effects, but it is known to do so, and in large numbers.

No one is saved alone under any circumstances, and less so with a disease as contagious as covid, which starkly reminds us that humans are, in addition to individual beings, social beings. This means that being with others, being for others and thanks to others is a condition of our existence. Let us not forget that at this crucial time.

* Gynecologist also specialist in family medicine: I am 70 and 48 years old. MN: 41804