Doubts about Covid-19 vaccines recently brought about 30 vaccine mandate protesters to E. Main St. near Bon Secours Community Hospital. The event was publicized as a nurses’ protest, but others joined the group, including electoral candidates with anti-vax platforms that infectious disease specialist Doug Manion, of Milford, says are scientifically baseless.
Psychiatric nurse practitioner Barbara Marszalek is running as a mayoral write-in candidate in Port Jervis.
“The vaccination mandate is an attack from the federal level on the local level,” she told the gathering.
“I feel our freedoms have been taken away,” said Juan Ayala, who is running for Middletown alderman.
Marszalek later mentioned a Libertarian trying to run as a write-in for county executive, emphasizing his stance against vaccine mandates.
However, federal requirements are consistent with what science and infection rates show about the value of vaccinations, according to Manion. Where vaccination rates are high, infection rates tend to be low. He works in pharmaceutical research and led clinical research that resulted in the drug that prevents HIV from developing into AIDS.
Among the protesters with notions that contradict pandemic history and science was Erin Snyder, of Port Jervis, an x-ray technician.
“I feel there aren’t enough studies on the vaccines,” she said,noting that she lacks a backup plan if she leaves or loses her job.
However, the large numbers in the human studies, as well as other preliminary research, show the vaccine to be “one of the safest in history,” Manion said.
Asked how vulnerable patients could be kept safe if attended by unvaccinated staff, Snyder said, “I wear PPE (personal protective equipment).”
But Manion has concerns about that solution.
“We saw what happened at the beginning of the pandemic. Hundreds of health care providers died, including some of my friends,” he said.
Which may be why some doctors decline to see unvaccinated patients. Robin Smith, of Port Jervis, complained that her urologist refused to see her without vaccination.
Likewise, a hairdresser at Styles by Diane, in Matamoras, said, “Today, two clients said they won’t come back because I’m not vaccinated. But people in the salon are like family.”
Nevertheless, Covid outbreaks have been traced to hair salons and barbers.
Smith also mentioned her concern about friends who had survived cancer having to be vaccinated. Depending on the cancer and doctors’ recommendatons, it can be a reason to avoid vaccination, but the state health department does allow for medically based exemptions.
“New York State leaves the determination of medical exemptions to health care providers and approval of such exemptions to employers,” said Abigail Barker, spokesperson at New York State Department of Health. Quoting the regulation, she said, “If any licensed physician or certified nurse practitioner certifies that immunization with COVID-19 vaccine is detrimental to the health of member of a covered entity’s personnel, based upon a pre-existing health condition, the requirements of this section relating to COVID-19 immunization shall be inapplicable only until such immunization is found no longer to be detrimental to such personnel member’s health. The nature and duration of the medical exemption must be stated in the personnel employment medical record, or other appropriate record, and must be in accordance with generally accepted medical standards.”
Manion also addressed fears that the vaccine would cause birth defects and miscarriages.
“It’s beyond debate. Covid-19 is highly dangerous to mothers and babies,” he said. “People avoid vaccination because of pregnancy, but pregnancy is a reason to be vaccinated.”
About 175 pregnant women have died in the past year from Covid-19, according to a recent New York Times story.
Vaccine safety during pregnancy was established for the vaccine the same way safety has been established for other pharmaceuticals--with animal and other pre-clinical studies, Manion said.
Meanwhile, like several others at the protest, Robin Imbarrato, of Mount Hope, said she came to the protest because she was “fighting for freedoms.”
“Covid-19 is just a bad flu,” she said. “Half my family had it.”
True, the virus is often not fatal, but it increased the U.S. death rate by 23% between March of 2020 and January 2021, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Other myths and misinformation surfaced. A couple of people spoke of ADE, antibody-dependent enhancement, suggesting that a vaccine can intensify virus infection. But in the respected scientific publication, Science, Derek Lowe wrote, “I've gone back through the reported preclinical studies, and I don't think I've missed one, and what I'm seeing is not one single case of ADE for any of them. Indeed, if something like that had shown up, it would have immediately released a bucket of clin-dev and regulatory sand into the gears of the whole project.How about the human clinical trials? Again, no signs of ADE were seen.”
Ayala also brought misinformation.
“Those who have had Covid are just as safe as those who have been vaccinated,” he said, asserting that, having had Covid-19, a person would no longer be contagious.
But while they wouldn’t be contagious from that infection for a period afterward, contracting the virus again is possible and can result in infecting others, Manion said.
What is beyond debate is that the hab is a vaccine. The word vaccine implies immunity. You can still catch covid, you can still have it, you can still transmitt it, you can still die from it so it is not a vaccine. It is an emergency experimental drug that has killed thousands of people and maimed thousands of others. You are a conspiracy theorist refusing to accept the real facts.
"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself". ~ Joseph Goebbels