Yes they're the same potion. I can't speak for all health professionals but I would say many doctors I know aren't fans of pharmaceutical companies. But they are a necessary evil to sponsor educational talks, usually the drug rep will say a quick speil which the doctors tolerate and then move on to the actual lecture which is presented by a colleague. If you're from a pharmaceutical company often switch won't even put you through to a doctor. And I won't so much accept a free pen from these guys. So no I don't have faith in the companies themselves. What I place my trust in are high quality randomised control trials published in well respected journals such as the NEJM, BMJ, JAMA, Lancet. I'm OK at looking at their results but will consult people more knowledgable in statistics and data analysis to back up what I think. And the more trials which show concordance in results, the more confident I am that I'm following evidence based practice.
If you're at retirement age then the majority of clinicians would say you clearly should get vaxxed. The chances of getting myocarditis for example is much higher from getting covid than the vaccine if you're over 40. Considering 4 billion people have now been fully vaccinated we know very well what the potential side effects are. We don't know what long term effects occur in 5 years time, but from previous drug roll outs anything serious and unexpected would seem to be unlikely. I guess it's easy when you spent years learning about DNA, RNA, immunomodulatory drugs that these mRNA vaccines don't faze me.
There's been a lot of talk that omicron has a lesser case fatality rate than delta. I don't think we've seen convincing evidence so far because it's now infecting a population that has some immunity through previous infection or vaccination. I would like to see data comparing case fatality between delta in patients who have not been vaccinated or previously had Covid.
It does seem inevitable that everyone will eventually get Covid so it's up to you to weigh up your risk factors versus risks of the disease but you should bank on getting it one day. Being fully vaxxed still gives reasonable protection against hospitalisation (70%) but only around 30% against infection. My stance is to let patients make their own mind after presenting them with pros and cons. If I feel very strongly that someone is making a bad decision then I may try to push them a bit more. I don't feel strongly about a fit and healthy person not wanting to take this vaccine.
Whether you like it or not, it is politicised. There's a condition called atrial fibrillation which confers a risk of stroke. The treatment is a blood thinner. There's a significant risk of death from a brain bleed which is far higher than any complication from a vaccine. Yet virtually nobody ever questions the recommendation and ends up taking the blood thinner.
