Editors note: The content below was originally sent out as an email. Dr. Beck was approached by a family member who expressed concerns about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine. This was her response and she kindly allowed Medika to reproduce it below.
While we all are entitled to our interpretation of data and news, as a health care front line worker who recently received her second Pfizer vaccine, I am ethically and morally responsible for responding to concerns about the COVID 19 vaccine. I am happy to respectfully engage with anyone regarding questions about the covid-19 vaccine as it is the #1 thing we can do to get our lives back to normal!!
I want to guilt free travel to and hug my mother and father again! This is why I got the vaccine:
1.I DONT WANT TO SUFFER AND DIE! There are things in life that you cannot protect yourself against (i.e.a drunk driver crashing head-on into your car, some cancers, etc) but vaccinations protect you from suffering, symptoms, and dying from specific diseases. They have proved to irradicate diseases (polio, mumps, etc) that plagued this nation and world in previous eras.
Now, with COVID running around in symptomatic and asymptomatic people, I am face to face with 100 strangers a week that I assume have COVID. I wear a mask and shield, I wash my hands, and limit my contact as much as possible in order to avoid getting COVID. But that may not be enough. Other people who are “trying to get back to normal” like an accountant seeing a well known client, gets coughed on and now is in the ICU fighting for his life after weeks in the hospital.
I know that man and his family wishes he had a vaccine instead of the heartache and devastation they are currently experiencing. We should all want to do everything we can to prevent our own suffering and dying when possible.
2. I DONT WANT MY LOVED ONES TO DIE!
- University of California San Francisco: We Thought It Was Just a Respiratory Virus – we were wrong
- Center for Disease Control and Prevention: CDC COVID Data Tracker
We worry about our parents, children, family, and friends. We want them to be safe, and remain a healthy part of our lives. Per the CDC, since Jan 21, 2020, there have been 21,853,491 COVID cases with 367, 652 COVID deaths (1.7% of people who get COVID DIE). The United States is seeing upwards of 3000 deaths a day from COVID and here in Los Angeles, the number approaches 200 people a day DYING FROM COVID.
These are grandmothers and grandfathers and cousins and healthcare workers. These are REAL people who, if vaccinated, would still be alive and enjoying their lives with their families and friends. They would not be DYING in hospitals ALONE if they were vaccinated.
I guarantee you any one of these souls crossing over would gladly have traded their death for a vaccine.
3. mRNA science has been around for decades and this SCIENCE is SAFE! We can manage the side effects easily.
- The New York Times: Pfizer Biotech Covid-19 Vaccine
- Center for Disease Control: Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work and CDC COVID Data Tracker
Almost 6.7 million vaccinations have been administered in the USA as of today and the numbers are growing every day. There are ZERO!!!! deaths directly linked to the vaccine. Yes, 21 people have had anaphylactic reactions but those can be managed when diagnosed. And now, you are required to be monitored by a nurse with a crash cart for 15 minutes after your vaccinations. They will save your life if it is endangered and you will live. Thank You epi-pens!
4. The #1 principle that anyone who’s taken a scientific research class knows is that “CORRELATION DOES NOT MEAN CAUSATION” Yes, people who have gotten the vaccine have died at some point afterward. Just because two things happen in a similar time frame does not mean that one caused the other. Just because a man dies from a car accident on his way to work doesn’t mean the coffee he drank that morning caused his death.
Most recently an MD from Miami whose official cause of death was extreme thrombocytopenia (inability to form blood clots). Only time will tell if this untimely death was due to the vaccine or any number of other things that could have caused this. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, all of these cases turn out to be vaccine-related deaths. That’s SIX people out of 6.7 million, and some of these are international stories, so that figure needs to be measured against global vaccinations.
That chance at death is much lower than if you get COVID.
5. The #1 principle in healthcare is that nothing is 0 or 100%, not anything. Nothing is perfect. but that is LIFE!
6. Side effects happen and are part of everything we do and every choice we make (and fainting is NOT a side effect, it’s a psychological response to anxiety and fear) Health care workers are trained to be vigilant in everything they do but unexpected things still occur.
Name one medication that has NEVER caused an adverse reaction in a human” even antibiotics and aspirin have killed people – but here’s the thing: you’re still more likely to die WITHOUT antibiotics (during an infection, of course), than with them. Laxatives, aspirin – even “herbal remedies” have hurt and killed people. Does that mean we don’t take meds when we need them? Of course not.
The fact is, EVERYTHING has its risks, everything from walking down your stairs to having a life-saving surgery carries a risk. Now, how do we know what the risks versus the efficacy are when it comes to this vaccine? Most people don’t understand that absolute perfectionists rule the scientific and medical worlds.
While that may make us quirky and difficult Type A personalities, this is actually useful because doctors and scientists aren’t likely to “work together to maintain a conspiracy” – no, they all want to be the best, they want to be the ones who found the one thing no one else saw, they want to prove themselves smarter than their peers.
They make a discovery, go through all the exhaustive testing, then they post their findings for peer review and those peers try to recreate what their claim is suggesting. The cool thing about science is that science can’t lie. If I follow your instructions, the science says that I should be able to recreate what you did; if I can’t, then the science is off.
So if other scientists can’t recreate the claim, it’s thrown out and started over. Many scientists have to be able to recreate your findings before it can even come close to being called “fact”. This is how we know we can trust science – we have a ton of colleagues that would love to prove each other wrong, and if they fail to do so, then the science is sound.
The reason medications cause issues in individuals is because all 7 billion+ of us means 7 billion+ different chemical make-ups… We just can’t account for all 7 billion chemical fingerprints in a constantly evolving species.
I could continue but these 6 reasons are my personal and professional reasons that support the evidence and argument for getting the COVID vaccine and I strongly believe it is the BEST choice for you, your family, and anyone you love or care about (which should be all humanity).
Respectfully and thoughtfully, A MEDICAL DOCTOR WHO THANKS GOD EVERY DAY THAT I GOT VACCINATED!!!
