# Irish Times readers explain why they are not getting the vaccine and the experts respond



## Brendan Burgess (20 Aug 2021)

An excellent article here: 









						Why we’re not getting the Covid-19 vaccine: Irish Times readers share their reasons
					

We asked people who aren’t getting vaccinated to tell us why. Here’s what they said




					www.irishtimes.com
				




For example: 

Fears of side effects, especially relating to fertility, unborn babies and children​Some write about the potential of the vaccine to affect male and female fertility, its impact on the menstrual cycle, the risks during pregnancy and potential risk to babies born to vaccinated women.

*Dr Eoghan de Barra replies: *“Due to the unique way that mRNA vaccines in particular work, the vaccine does not get into reproductive organs. The m (messenger) RNA is not retained in our bodies and does not change our DNA. There is no evidence that they impact on fertility or the menstrual cycle. The risk of Covid-19 infection in pregnancy are now well established and a daily reality. Sars-CoV-2 has been found in the placenta and shown to cause stillbirth. Vaccination is part of reducing the risk to mother and baby.

“There is no long-term data yet on babies born to vaccinated mothers but mRNA does not cross the placenta and thus there is no biological plausibility that damage might occur.”


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## Purple (20 Aug 2021)

This also caught my eye;


> “In the history of immunisation, there has never been issues of long-term side effects of any licensed vaccine that have been manufactured and used according to the required regulatory standards.”


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## Eureka101 (20 Aug 2021)

Wonderful article that should become a public information document and posted through every letterbox in the country to encourage more people to ‘take one for the team’


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## Brendan Burgess (22 Aug 2021)

It's interesting to see the polite respectful attitude of Sylvia Thompson with the rude disrespectful attitude of Jennifer O'Connell in the same paper.









						Jennifer O’Connell:  final breath volte-faces of #covidiots serve as cautionary tales
					

Stories  feed something ugly in our psyches, the idea that there are good and bad victims of the virus




					www.irishtimes.com
				




I suspect that Thompson's article may encourage a few people who have not considered vaccination to now consider it whereas O'Connell's article will just get people's backs up.

Brendan


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## Purple (23 Aug 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I suspect that Thompson's article may encourage a few people who have not considered vaccination to now consider it whereas O'Connell's article will just get people's backs up.


Just like most of her articles it's an opinion piece without substance. It required no research, no expert knowledge, no interviews, no distillation of the facts. When the pubs were closed we were spared the narrow and often sexist ramblings of the bar stool expert. I find O'Connell a female version of that with her lazy sexism and emotive playing to the gallery.


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## seamus m (29 Aug 2021)

A lot of people who won't get vacine is because they feel pushed into it. What other big decision for your child can only one parent decide fate .


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## Paul O Mahoney (16 Sep 2021)

Purple said:


> This also caught my eye;


However the GSK H1N1 vaccine did in very limited cases did have cases of side effects,  but that turned out to be an adjuvant,  or gunk as I call it, Stamford University in 2018 found the vaccine itself to be fine but the global echo chamber successfully got it banned.  Of course science took 8 years to declare it safe .I often wonder if they fixed the adjuvant earlier would Covid-19 ever had evolved?

I think we have to accept that a cohort will never accept vaccines in any form,  but the narrative that they put out needs to be ignored and not engaged in, they'll simply not listen.

They tried the same tactics with the HPV vaccine but thankfully it was swatted away by good evidence and risk analysis.


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## Paul O Mahoney (16 Sep 2021)

seamus m said:


> A lot of people who won't get vacine is because they feel pushed into it. What other big decision for your child can only one parent decide fate .


And yet for decades the MMR is administered to the vast majority both here and globally? My wife is a scientist and works in the vaccine area, we had doubts about all the vaccines we allowed our children get vaccinated, and we lost a child of 8 months old.

She was responsible for getting an vaccine to protect initially children from getting pneumonia that was causing death in most cases,  the question is whether the risk outweights the risks, and since Jenner developed the first vaccine in 1798 the positives vastly outweigh the negatives and that's a fact.

Pediatric vaccination is in my view almost a civil right, as we are probably in an era of multiple outbreaks of deadly viruses, as mankind keeps pushing into nature for greed.

Something I read recently predicted that we might be facing pandemics every 5 to 10 years, might be over pessimistic but the evidence in the first 20 years of this century has shown that prediction to be somewhat accurate.


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## Paul O Mahoney (16 Sep 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> An excellent article here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And yet if a vaccine for cancer was developed and rolled out tomorrow most would be in the queue for it.

We live in a digital era where, with a bit of work and logic all the information on all these new vaccines is available for everyone to study and understand. Frankly its laziness that drives these stories about infertility and growing another eye, but its allowed in the name of free speech?

People will needlessly die in greater numbers if these "fears" are allowed to embed themselves into the minds of people and society,  but nothing is done by governments either,  however most of the anti vax cohort wouldn't believe any facts that were given.


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## Paul O Mahoney (16 Sep 2021)

Just on a broader note, mRNA is now expected to replace vaccine development and manufacture for the future. Pfizer among others have publicly declared this, and it's now thought widely that vaccines will be developed to treat multiple viruses with one shot,  eg covid combined with flu vaccine. 

More serious illness like cancer and dementia or chronic respiratory disease it now the main area of research for mNRA technology. So, I hold the view that those who resist the new vaccines and its technology are akin to the frog sitting in a pot of boiling water. 

And yes there will be issues with new vaccines and these will be difficult to control but let's say that in 10 years time a vaccine is developed and is created by using your own body's immune system as a reference point and is then able to be programmed to attack cancer at a molecular level before you notice a lump or other tell tale signs. Add in CRSPR  technology and with a generation we don't have people dying of cancer and other serious diseases but we have people alive and living with their conditions. 

This is happening now and has been persued for the last 20 years.


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