Don’t Fall for the Anti-Vaxxers ‘VAERS Scare’ Tactic

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    https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-critical-thinking-health/dont-fall-vaers-scare-tactic

    Don’t Fall for the ‘VAERS Scare’ Tactic

    Anti-vaxxers show how a precious vaccine adverse event reporting database can be used to scare the public

    The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System or VAERS is being misused by anti-vaxxers to terrify the public. It’s a shame because VAERS plays a vital role in detecting important but rare reactions caused by vaccines. The weaponization of VAERS by anti-vaccine activists serves as a reminder that having access to more information does not always lead to better decisions. Information needs to be correctly interpreted to guide us in the right direction.

    From the article

    It’s not how big your tool is, it’s how you use it

    To show that VAERS listings should not be taken at face value to mean that the vaccine caused the reported event, I trawled through the database’s reports on the COVID-19 vaccines. There were many, many reports of fever and injection site reactions (to be expected), but there were also, shall we say, head-scratching reports.

    • A woman reported a large bald spot on top of her head following vaccination.
    • Someone simply wrote in, “Nosebleed.”
    • I saw a report of “anal leakage.”
    • More than one person complained of suddenly becoming impotent.
    • Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, the funniest report I saw stated, “My penis swelled to ten times its size.”


    It is easy for an anti-vaccine activist—someone who is categorically opposed to vaccines and who sees themselves as a hero saving humanity from a costly mistake—to simply cherry-pick scary VAERS reports and present them as proof that a vaccine is known to cause serious harm and death, a tactic we could call “VAERS scare.” VAERS, when utilized in the right way by the right people, can be a fantastic early warning system to detect vaccine adverse reactions, especially those that were too rare to be detected in the clinical trials that preceded approval of the vaccine.It is a tool and like any tool it can unfortunately be misused.

    In summary : Anti Vaxxers want to scare the Public and use VAERS as a tool do that .


 
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