There are several side effects of COVID-19 shots! Here are 3 things you should know!
Paul Goepfert, director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, said multiple times that he has never seen something as effective as COVID-19 vaccines. He has an experience of 30 years in studying vaccines, which is why his thoughts are good to be taken into consideration. Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson are some of the most used vaccine brands in the United States. They’ve also been considered to be the most effective.
But how can someone be sure about COVID-19 vaccines in the long term?
Goepfert is one of the most popular vaccine experts who has spoken publicly about the safety of vaccines. How can someone be so sure about the effects of a newly discovered treatment? There are several reasons and by continuing to read you’ll be able to discover them.
3 Things You Should Know About The COVID Shots:
- The substance is quickly eliminated from the body
- Side effects show up within the first 2 months
- Multiple patients’ experiences for 6 months
Before describing every one of these affirmations, let’s have a look at how Americans reacted in 2020 and 2021 when a significant number of vaccines were developed
Most Americans were more hesitant about vaccinating their children than being for themselves. It was probably one of the main concerns discussed at the moment the shots appeared and were considered effective.
In a survey from March 2021, 23% of respondents said that they needed confirmation that everything was going to be safe before getting the shot. In another survey that took place in April 2021, 26% of respondents with children aged 12 to 15 expressed their feelings about the unknown effects of the shot. This way, the Kaiser Family Foundation discovered that a lot of the parents were waiting to see how the shots were working before deciding if their child should be vaccinated or not.
How can we be confident that we are going to be safe in the long term? Here is what Goepfert said:
1. Vaccines are quickly eliminated from the body
Being generally one-and-done, vaccines are safer than other medicines when it comes to side effects. Goepfert says that medicines taken daily are significantly more dangerous because of the effects they can have on the body in the long term. The levels of the drugs build up in the body over months, or sometimes even years.
Vaccines are safer, regarding their design of delivering a payload and then being quickly removed by the body.
In 2020, many people used to be scared, thinking that vaccines were rushed into use without being carefully checked and FDA-approved. In the end, even though they were scared for their lives, more than a billion people took the shot.
2. Vaccine side effects show up within the following 2 months, if at all
It is completely normal that, over time, there have been some serious side effects people have had to deal with in the case of some vaccines. However, as in any case, the effects appeared right after the shot or within the following 2 months.
The first oral polio vaccination program in the 1950s is the only one, according to Goepfert, that could be compared to the magnitude and rapidity of the COVID outbreak. When this vaccine first became available in the US in 1955, it took advantage of a weakened form of the polio virus, which might very rarely become activated and cause paralysis in no more than 1 in 2.4 million patients. (Compare this to the 60,000 children in the US who contracted polio in 1952, and the more than 3,000 children who lost their lives to the disease.).
Paralysis produced by vaccination occurs in cases between one and four weeks following immunization.
All COVID vaccines teach the body to detect a portion of the virus called the spike protein and produce antibodies that can combat the virus in the event of a true infection.
In 1976, a commonly administrated swine flu vaccination in the US was known to cause Guiallin-Barre Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder where the immune system assaults the nerves, in about one in 100,000 instances. Most of the incidents happened within 8 weeks after vaccination.
Another notable experience took place in 1999, with the rotavirus, known for causing life-threatening diarrhea in infants. The vaccine was taken out of the marketplace after numerous cases of intestinal blockage in the vaccine’s first 6 months of usage.
3. COVID-19 vaccine experience in the first 6 months
Goepfert said that when Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines were approved for emergency use in the United States in December 2020, the experts already knew about the short-term side effects that were possible.
All of the vaccines used (including Johnson & Johnson and Novavax) were tested by more than 30,000 individuals. So, the short-term side effects were expected in some cases and didn’t represent a reason to worry about them.
According to Goepfert, the side effects observed in the studies were also the ones that occurred in the nationwide rollouts. These were considered “tolerability issues”. Headaches, tiredness, and arm pain were the most common symptoms after the shots. They appeared 1 or 2 days after the vaccination and lasted for a maximum of 7 days.
The COVID vaccination tracker managed by The New York Times revealed in June 2021 that approximately 2.33 billion doses of the vaccine had been given globally.
3 dangerous side effects you should know about
AstraZeneca
1. Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia was caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine in some cases. Studies have shown that about one in 100,000 people experienced clotting disorders after the AstraZeneca vaccine doses.
Johnson & Johnson
2. Antiphospholipid Syndrome. In the Johnson & Johnson case, a smaller number of incidents have occurred. Goepfert said in a recent public appearance that the reasons why clotting disorders such as Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia and Antiphospholipid Syndrome have occurred are not yet known.
Pfizer and Moderna
3. Myocarditis and heart muscle inflammation were some of the most dangerous side effects reported in people who received these vaccines. Even though rare side effects were noticed among the people who chose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, there are still some concerns about the way things will evolve.
Were the vaccines safe? Should we stop worrying about side effects, considering that more than 3 and a half years have passed by?
Today, a lot of people still worry about the fact that COVID vaccines were rushed into use, but a lot of doctors keep reminding their patients how effective the shots were in most cases. Even Goepfert said multiple times that there should be confidence in the data showing the incredibly safe track record of COVID vaccines.
Even though the data from 2021 showed incredibly good results, everyone admits that long-term side effects cannot be completely ignored and that, in some cases, serious ones may occur.
However, the side effects of vaccines are way safer than the ones caused by the real infection. Almost 10% of the people who had COVID may still experience muscle pain, difficulty in thinking, fatigue, loss of taste, and depression, even though some time has passed. “We don’t know why that is, how long these symptoms will last, or if there are effective ways to treat them. That is the most troubling unknown for me.” – said Goepfert in an interview.
If you are interested in this subject, on Amazon, you can find a great audiobook. It is called “The Truth About COVID-19” and was written by multiple New York Times best-selling authors Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association. The two team up to expose the truth about COVID-19.
If you liked this article, you can check out another related one, which can also be found on our website.
