Comment from
Laleh Hariri
From Covid-19 support group
A number of people have asked me my thoughts on the coronavirus vaccines. Well, here I am this morning getting the first of my Pfizer shot series.
Warning, wall of text to follow. This is my opinion, take it or leave it as you will.
The science behind the mRNA vaccines is brilliant, IMO. The shots have few components. A strand of m(essenger) RNA which codes for a spike protein found on the outside of the coronavirus, several fat molecules to get that mRNA into some of our cells, and some harmless salts and sugars – plain old sodium chloride, potassium salts, and sucrose. So MRNA, fat, salt, and sugar. That’s it. The mRNA gets into a few cells, and gets their protein synthesis apparatus to make the spike protein. The spike protein gets detected by your body which mounts an immune response to it. Now your body knows in advance how to fight coronavirus due to the vaccine mediated immune response to the same spike protein. You are protected.
What does this mean regarding risks? It is true no vaccine has ever been developed so quickly and the safety trials have only been a few months long. But… by design, there is no reason for me to believe this vaccine will have negative long term effects. Why? The components. They don’t last in your body. The salts and fats are nothing new and long term harmless. I suspect the couple of allergic reactions popping up shortly after vaccination are to one of the fat molecules used. These have been easily treated to date. The mRNA is a set of instructions used by your cells and then dissipated. It doesn’t get into your dna so won’t replicate into future cells in your body. So all that’s left is your body’s own immune response and memory of that response. You have a protective response to the virus without ever having had CoVID.
Are there still questions? Of course. To me by far the biggest one is how long the immunity will last. I have no good reason to believe the vaccine is dangerous. I have good reason to believe it will help. I thank the 60,000 volunteers who participated in the phase 3 trials and the brilliant minds who developed these vaccines for their service to humanity.
The decision then comes down to the risk vs the benefit. Those of you who are fellow health care workers have seen with me what COVID can do. 300,000+ dead so far, 1 in 1000 Americans. Respiratory failure. Strokes. Myocarditis leading to fatal arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy. Pulmonary embolisms. Thromboembolic disease. Strangely ITP too – low platelet counts like 6k I have now seen twice from covid. Many of our colleagues ill, some hospitalized, some dead. And long COVID – clearly many are not recovered now months later, with little idea whether lifelong health consequences await. Meanwhile our treatments offer marginal outcome improvements from steroids, oxygen, and a couple of experimental drugs.
Our government and society have utterly failed in controlling the disease through public health measures. Odds are astronomical [very high] that you will eventually get CoVID19 if you do anything but live the life of a shut in.
When I look at this, the risks from CoVID far outweigh the risks of what unknowns remain regarding these vaccines. If you’ve had CoVID recently, you could wait to see how things play out for a bit since you have some temporary immunity. And science will continue to refine these vaccines and create new options.
I’d recommend getting the vaccine. I got it myself today. And I plan to get it for my daughters (13 and 12) as soon as it’s possible.
You will all make your own choice, but I hope you will put your trust in science as I have chosen to do. Our future depends on not only the vaccines working but our collective willingness to take part.
Amrit Ponnambalam MD MBA FACEP