The anti-vaxxer morons on these forums- in their scare campaigns to promote vaccine hesitancy - are dishonest in many ways.
One of their favourite obfuscations and deceptions is to talk about the vaccine 'experiment'. This is a lie or a misunderstanding of the process.
In this case, the prudence of monitoring and review after the implementation of any intervention - medical or otherwise.
People who have heart disease, strokes, cancer surgery etc have an intervention (revascularisation, chemotherapy, radiation therapy etc) and are then monitored for efficacy and safety of treatments for the rest of their lives. It is standard procedure, obviously, because NO intervention is a 'magic bullet'. Tweaking and follow-up will normally be required.
Vaccination is no different - albeit that the follow-up period adopted is only 2 years (as this is considered sufficient).
It is a lie to claim that, due to the prudence of this follow-up monitoring, that vaccinations are experiments. The vaccinations were approved for use after Phase 3 trials, albeit with fast-tracking (due to the health and safety cost-benefits of doing that).
Their fallacious argument is the same as saying that all life-saving surgery and other medical interventions are 'experiments' because the consequences and prognoses are not 100% certain and need to be monitored closely over time (with the possibility of follow-up surgery or treatments - which is common with cancers) and adjustments in the doses of medicines.
When these anti-vaxxer fools ridicule others for agreeing with a process that may involve several rounds of boosters, they are also implying that cancer patients who agree to chemotherapy are stupid because they may have to uindergo several courses of treatment over many years. The fools are also implying that people who agree to heart by-pass surgery are stupid because they will have to take several medicines every day for the rest of their lives and may need additional revascularisations.
This is a prime example of the wool-headed, half-baked thinking of anti-vaxxers - or at least the usual suspects who are daily wasting their lives trying to peddle nonsense.
This Reuters article explains the foolishness behind these lies better than I can:
EVERYTHINGNEWS
FEBRUARY 13, 20217:53 AMUPDATED 10 MONTHS AGO
Fact check: It is standard practice for vaccine safety monitoring to continue after approval
By Reuters Staff
4 MIN READ
Social media users have asked why clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines are set to continue for several years if the jab is safe.
Examples can be seen (
here) and (
here).
“COVID-19 vaccine trials are ongoing. What does that mean for those taking the vaccine?”, one post shared on Facebook asks.
The post correctly notes that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been given an “estimated study completion date” of Jan. 31, 2023 (
here). For the COVID-19 vaccine created by Moderna, studies are expected to end on Oct. 27, 2022 (
here).
However, it is standard practice for safety monitoring to continue after a vaccine has been approved for use.
After clearing final Phase III clinical trials, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was granted approval for emergency use by U.S. regulators in December 2020 (
here).
Pfizer reported that it would continue safety monitoring of participants in its Phase III trial. (
here).
This means that “all trial participants will continue to be monitored to assess long-term protection and safety for an additional two years after their second dose” (
here).
Similarly, Moderna said that it would continue to follow participants from its Phase III trial for the next two years (
here).
Additional data collected will include “longer term safety follow-up, duration of protection against COVID-19, and efficacy against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection”.
How vaccinates are tested, licensed and monitored for safety is explained by Oxford University’s Vaccine Knowledge Project (
here).
Vaccines are also monitored by government bodies as they are rolled out, with the UK using the Yellow Card scheme (
here) and the U.S. government operating VAERS (vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html).
Although the vaccines have completed the necessary steps of each trial, the health and economic impact of COVID-19 has meant the process has been sped up.
There has been a global effort to pool resources in order to accelerate the development and production of vaccines (
here).
On top of this, unprecedented financial investments and scientific collaborations have made it possible for some steps in research and development to happen “in parallel” (
here).
For example, some clinical trials are evaluating multiple vaccines at the same time, though clinical and safety standards are maintained despite the acceleration.
VERDICT
Missing context. It is standard procedure for safety monitoring to continue after vaccines have been approved for use.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts
here .
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-vaccine-monitoring-idUSKBN2AC2G3
