The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2, better known by its stage name of Coronavirus (which, since it is only one of several fairly common types of coronavirus, is as unspecific as entering a restaurant and ordering "a food", but that is beyond the point of this article), has come to shake the very foundations of the world as we knew it. I had avoided writing about the subject because my inner hipster considered it too mainstream, and I think that all social networks, news portals, and, well, everything already quite oversaturated; we occasionally need an escape from reality so we can forget the fact that many of us have spent weeks without practically leaving our house. But there is a topic on which I have wanted to give my opinion, since I have noticed the alarming levels of disinformation that exist in the general population. I know that it is not exactly original either, and it is undoubtedly something that has been discussed like never before in recent months, but I want to contribute to the subject and talk a little about vaccines, and through solid evidence, demonstrate why its negative side effects go far beyond the autism they supposedly cause. I know at this point many will close the tab, or go straight to accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist, but I ask that you please stay until the end, and let's all have a healthy chat about it in the comments. Let’s begin:
The Truth About Vaccines: Why Their Side Effects are Worse than Autism
First, I want to begin by clarifying that first of all, I am a man of science, with little belief in superstitions, pseudosciences and even religions (except for Pastafarianism, of which I am a faithful follower). I believe evidence always speaks for itself; the numbers and facts can occasionally be interpreted in various ways, even in contradictory ones, but they always show a single truth, which can be distorted by those who try, but cannot be changed. And that is the beauty of evidence-based science: it does not care about your opinion, it explains things as they are and not as we want them to be, and for this same reason it is attacked so constantly. It can be understood, then, why it has fallen a bit out of favor in some circles where a certain perception of the truth is considered to be more important than the truth itself, I am not pointing any fingers here, but we all know at least one group that does it quite obviously.
But enough of this; let's get to the topic at hand. Surely we have all seen a variety of comments and memes about the anti-vaxxers; “Activists” professing that vaccines are not only unnecessary since, according to them, the body's immune system is more than enough to deal with all kinds of infections by any microorganism, but in fact they are capable of inflicting harm, even causing adverse conditions like autism, or the diseases they are supposed to protect against. These people are frequently mocked and insulted, especially in modern times, and it is of little help the fact that many of them have other even more outlandish theories; some say vaccines are part of a plan by the world elites (be they corporations, freemasons, reptilians or crab people) to keep us tame and under their control by implanting chemicals or microchips, others say their true role is to get the masses sick so that the big pharmaceutical companies earn millions selling medicines, and some groups claim that they are a method of population control, but this time related to 5G antennas, chemical trails in the sky, satanic rituals, and a great deal of things each one more batshit insane unlikely than the other. Now, it is true that I cannot agree with most of these theories, and that there is little credible evidence behind most of them. But there is something they are right about; vaccines are bad, you guys, and today I will prove it with pure science.
The origin of the evil instruments known as vaccines came at the end of the 18th century, when in the middle of a European smallpox epidemic, Edward Jenner, an English doctor, realized that women milking cows infected with the bovine version of the disease, and were infected during the process, were immune to the far deadlier strain that affected the humans. Edward, driven by scientific curiosity, and unburdened by things such as "ethics" or "morality", conducted an experiment in which he took samples of bovine smallpox wounds from a farmer, and inoculated them into James Phipps, a brave 8 year old boy and precursor to all laboratory rats and guinea pigs in the medical world. The boy became slightly ill, without suffering sequels or significant problems, and when he was repeatedly exposed to human smallpox, he was as immune to this condition as the farmers. However, it wasn't until the 1880s that the French scientist Louis Pasteur, creator of the (surprise) pasteurization process, perfected vaccines, creating antigens against anthrax and cholera. Furthermore, it was Pasteur who invented the term “vaccine”, based on the word vacca; Latin for cow, in honor and recognition of Jenner's discoveries, and eternally linking the name of such a noble creature to that of his vile creation. Too bad neither of them knew the damage they would cause to future generations.
Vaccines exert their terrible effect in several ways, although they all share the same principle: introducing a virus or bacteria safely to the body so that the immune system recognizes the infectious agent and learns to protect itself against it, acquiring immunity in the event of future contact. There are 4 basic types of vaccines:
- Live-attenuated vaccines, such as smallpox or chickenpox, which contain a weakened variant of the virus, insufficient to cause dangerous symptoms, but sufficient to create resistance.
- Inactivated vaccines, made with viruses or bacteria (or proteins from them) such as Bordatella pertussis (the microorganism which causes whooping cough), already dead and therefore harmless, but still maintaining their molecular structure, which is memorized by the immune system.
- Toxoid vaccines, which contain toxins extracted from microorganisms and that are responsible for the diseases caused by these, such as tetanus and diphtheria. These toxins are inactivated, and when inoculated, they make the body able to suffer a possible infection without experiencing any adverse effect.
- And finally, the Biosynthetic vaccines, in which only certain fragments, natural or artificial, of the microorganisms are used, causing the immune system to attack, for example, the capsule of a virus or the constituent proteins of a bacteria, destroying it. Some examples are antigens against hepatitis B, or the human papilloma virus.
In addition to these, there are a couple of other types still in development: those with a recombinant vector that basically take DNA that in theory could be from allergens, cancerous tissue, or even autoantibodies _ (responsible for autoimmune diseases such as Lupus or rheumatoid arthritis) _ and integrate them into the "body" of a germ, inducing resistance against non-infectious diseases, and the DNA vaccines, which, as the name implies, use only the DNA of the microorganism, and therefore they are easier to produce and store.
Now I know what you are thinking, "wow Mike, those “vaccine” things sure sound pretty good, why do you criticize them so much? What are you not telling us? Do they really cause autism? Could it be that dead viruses revive, or that the immune system doesn't respond well and end up causing the diseases they should prevent? Are they the tool described in the Bible which the Antichrist will use to impose his will on the kingdom of mortals? It’s that, isn’t it?
Also, he’s a reptilian freemason.
Not quite; it's something even worse. Before revealing the truth, however, credit where it is due. Contrary to what many profess (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary), vaccines do not cause autism. This myth arose due to an article published in the English newspaper "The Lancet" in 1998, in which a doctor named Andrew Wakefield associated the application of trivalent vaccines (against measles, chickenpox and rubella) to an increase in the incidence of autism in a group of 12 children. But two years later it was discovered that the results had been falsified, and not only this, but Andrew had received a payment of 80,000 euros from a company dedicated to proving the alleged damage caused by the vaccines. After that smear campaign, the medical license of the (until then) Dr. Wakefield was withdrawn, and that should have been the end of the matter, but we know that conspiracy theorists rarely get carried away by small things like "evidence" or “logic”. The public has pressured the scientific community to carry out more studies, and all of them have had the same results: neither the viral or bacterial content of vaccines, nor the metals and other substances occasionally used as adjuvants, are capable of causing autism, serious diseases, or increasing the incidence of allergies.
It is that a very small number of individuals may present some transitory adverse symptoms, something to be expected taking into account the complexity and heterogeneity of the human body, and the fact that some people may suffer negative effects after consuming something as common as Gluten, however, curiously there are usually no protests against wheat, nor campaigns to ban it, as is the case with vaccines (which indeed should be banned, but not for these reasons). The appearance of seizures has been reported in 1 in 14,000 cases, idiopathic thrombocytopenia (decrease in the number of platelets in the blood that makes clotting slower) occur in 1 in 30,000 vaccinated children, and encephalitis in approximately 1- 10 children for every million vaccinations. If we take into account the incidence of dangerous diseases such as rubella (1 in 3000) or measles (1 in 6000), it is clear that vaccinating is enormously safer than not doing it, comparable to playing Russian roulette with a NERF gun instead of a revolver. And in case more evidence was needed, below you can see a graph comparing the number of measles cases in the United States only, quantified in hundreds of thousands, before and after the introduction of the vaccine, and later, of its reinforcement.
In summary, vaccines have proven to be one of the most important inventions in the history of humanity, having allowed us to reach the point of completely eradicating smallpox, and in the not too distant future we will surely add to that list other diseases that used to be a major cause of deaths around the world and that today are already very rare, such as polio or rubella. Why, then, my drama about the evils it has created? Well, precisely for that reason, they save too many lives.
When Edward Jenner created that first rudimentary vaccination process, he no doubt had in mind the hundreds of thousands of people dying annually of diseases that many don't even know today, but there is one group whose well-being he definitely did not think about: funeral home owners. The poor people in this industry have suffered in recent years due to the lack of, umm, clients, and while the current pandemic has certainly brought incredible prosperity to this type of business, as soon as the vaccine is developed and massive immunization plans are implemented, the death toll will drop dramatically again, and with it, the profits of these humble and dedicated individuals, whose struggle has been ignored by the cruel society in which we live.
And as if this were not enough, the evidence suggests that overpopulation, already a problem in various parts of the world, will worsen exponentially in the coming decades, making us reach the 10 billion inhabitants by 2050, increasing social inequality, and the already existing shortage of resources. Was Thanos right and the excessive population growth will prove to be our end? Possibly, but if one thing is certain, it's that if it weren't for the vaccines, we would never have to ask ourselves that question. Having contributed enormously to increasing average life expectancy to almost double that of the early 19th century, it has also condemned our grandchildren to suffer countless hours stuck in the vehicular traffic that will be in every decent-sized city, or worse, _a having to use extremely overcrowded public transportation, and fight over a bus seat like the warrior tribes in Mad Max fight for food and resources.
The gun guarantees you a seat by the window.
So the next time you think that the invention of the vaccine was something positive for humanity just because it has allowed previously unthinkable improvements in our quality of life, saving hundreds of millions of lives in the United States alone, and has saved all the governments of the world countless sums of money, allowing an enormous generalized growth of infrastructure and taking the global economies to a time of prosperity never seen before, think of the owners of funeral homes in small towns around the world, seeing how their finances suffer after another month practically without deaths from diseases, eventually having to close after being forced to abandon their dog on the streets, unable to afford its food (poor Scrappy, it will not make it through the winter). Think about future generations, sharing a subway car with hundreds of people, trapped tight in a sea of unpleasant body odors, competing with who knows how many more for a mediocre and unsatisfactory job to pay for increasingly scarce food. This is the sad reality to which we were condemned by Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, and the medical and pharmaceutical companies, which undoubtedly even in these previously described conditions will continue to work tirelessly to lengthen our lives and eliminate all the diseases that have kept the world population at bay since the very beginning of humanity. Monsters, the whole pack of them.
References:
- Here’s how you can debunk 7 most common Anti-Vaxxers arguments with science
- Vaccine myths debunked
- CDC - Vaccines don’t cause autism
- WebMD – Do vaccines cause autism?
- FindMeCure – Do vaccines cause autism? The origins of the myth
- Wikipedia – Vaccines
- LiveScience - How do vaccines work?
- Vaccine types
- The Sydney Morning Herald – “We need people to die”: funeral businesses worry about slowdown in deaths
- BBC News – How many people can our planet really support?
- World Economic Forum – The planet can’t cope with overpopulation
- Wikipedia – Life expectancy