Table of Contents
Darryl Betts
darryllrbetts.wordpress.com
Darryl is a businessman and a post-graduate student in Philosophy at the University of Auckland, with particular interests in the philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, epistemology, logic, and AI. He holds a BSc in Computer Science and a BA in Philosophy, Logic and Computation.
Throughout my life I have seen many discussions about people who are anti-vaccination. I never paid too much attention to the discussion because, well, I just never paid much attention to it. Consequently I never considered I had reason to be concerned about vaccines, and when I got older I started getting the flu shot each year. To be honest I couldn’t really tell you whether it helped or not because I have never really suffered from the flu the way that other people talk about it.
I have understood the basic principle behind vaccines since school, and it seemed – still seems – to be a brilliant idea. From my western perspective it seemed that vaccines had successfully delivered what was expected of them, and I viewed the anti-vaccination community as small and not a threat of any significance to anyone. I was aware of Bill Gates’ occasional prophecies of doom but never really paid much attention to him – I would far prefer he fix the problems with Microsoft Windows Update and stop fiddling endlessly with applications which already do what I want.
Soon after Covid-19 appeared – when discussion started about vaccines – I assumed that I would probably take the vaccine once it was available. Covid-19 seemed potentially serious enough that a vaccine would be a good idea (based on my past experiences with vaccines) – and I had no reason to be overly concerned about vaccine safety if they were able to produce a vaccine for Covid-19.
However, when technical information about the Covid-19 vaccines began to emerge and to be discussed by various scientists and doctors, I listened carefully to what was said and I became appropriately concerned in response to their questions and concerns. Not just about the safety of these new vaccines for individuals but also about broader consequences such as how they might influence the trajectory of the pandemic. Not long afterwards, efficacy and adverse events data was showing increasing support for those concerns – and concerns about the various adverse events reporting systems themselves were added in to the mix.
Additionally, there was by now a very intense mainstream narrative being locked in and dissenting scientific views related to Covid-19 were being shut out or ignored. As my concerns about the scientific soundness of the vaccines grew, my concerns about political and media interference in the whole situation also grew. Simultaneously my fear of Covid-19 itself was steadily declining (it had been doing so since almost the start).
By the time the vaccine roll-out began my concerns had reached the point where I had already decided I would delay my taking of the vaccine – and it was questionable whether it was even necessary for me to take it. The efficacy and adverse events situation got worse – a clearer picture emerged of real harms – and of serious failings in the system. All the governments I was watching pushed on relentlessly with vaccine roll-out, refused to acknowledge problems and dissenting scientific opinions, and eventually started overriding long standing principles such as informed consent.
A crucial point here – which is conveniently omitted from the official narrative – is that there is a very specific difference between these new Covid-19 vaccines and “traditional” vaccines. A traditional vaccine essentially just trains your immune system to respond to a pathogen by introducing an attenuated form of the pathogen. Thus they work in harmony with our immune systems. In contrast the new vaccines tell our bodies how to generate the pathogen. That’s a whole new ball-game and I don’t plan to be in the first innings – nor frankly should anyone else.
My position is now clear. I will never take any of these Covid-19 vaccines – and my concern about Covid-19 itself has diminished to the point where I see no reason to. Should any new vaccine (for Covid-19 or anything else) enter the market in the future it will take a great deal to convince me that it is both safe and necessary – and more importantly it will take a great deal to convince me that the manufacturers and authorities involved can themselves be trusted. My confidence in the various organizations involved in this saga – big pharma, regulatory authorities, governments, universities, medical authorities, hospitals, and the general medical profession, is now close to zero. In fact, I am now very wary of any medication and will be trying even harder from now on to stay out of the clutches of the health system.
I am strongly pro-science, and recognize the great benefits which science and technology have brought to us. But things have gone badly wrong. The details of what has gone wrong and how we got to this point is a topic for another day – but there is a massive failure of duty here, and as a consequence massive damage to public trust. The organizations and governments who have been pushing the vaccination wagon for years have done incalculable damage to their cause, not to mention to the medical world more broadly.
They have taken an anti-vaccination fringe and turned it into something which now must be far larger. This is a blunder of historic scale – from what I can see it is unprecedented in human history.
In a way maybe I should thank them, because while previously I didn’t see any cause for concern, it has now made me much more cautious about pharmaceuticals – and that might just lead me to better health. In addition, this saga – along with some other recent world events – has made me less quick to rush to judgement when I hear ideas that seem far-fetched.
Perhaps, what staggers me the most is that the people high up in these organizations do not show any awareness of the damage they have done to public trust and the consequences of that damage – a damage which will only get worse as the mainstream narrative continues to crumble and more people become aware of the truth. But then again I supposed if those people were capable of seeing what they have done – then we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD.
