Answering doctor who recommends COVID-19 vaccine to his staff

With the strong push by medical facilities to have their staff "fully vaccinated against COVID-19", it would be natural to assume that the medical directors and doctors who are requiring vaccination have researched the vaccines and are making their recommendations based on a real understanding of the illness, the vaccine, and all the risks and benefits. It would also be natural to assume that if there was a remedy, they would be using it. The letter below, written to staff members by a lung specialist who is the medical director of a critical care hospital in the U.S., shows that these assumptions may not be well-founded. He may be misleading his staff and endangering his patients by making many statements, but offering no references. As was acknowledged by Professor Heidi Larson during the WHO’s Global Vaccine Safety Summit, in early December, 2019, doctors and nurses do not have enough information about vaccines to respond to their patients’ questions; at best they have about a half-day of vaccine education.[1] At that point, Larson was referring to traditional vaccines, not the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that use a new technology which is not well-understood.[2] <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> America's Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) has the information he should have known before encouraging anyone to get a COVID-19 vaccine. We provide this information, in bold, interspersed within the text of the letter.

Dear… Since March of 2020, we’ve faced unprecedented challenges here at work and at home as we’ve struggled through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our hospital has played a leading role in caring for the sickest of the sick in the [redacted]. Each one of you plays a vital role in the delivery of the complex care these patients need.  You are the essential “front line” in this ongoing fight. In March of 2020, when we saw our first COVID-19 patient, we didn’t have any medications to treat or prevent COVID-19. Those were scary times. You faced your darkest fears and came to work, day after day. None of us knew what to expect, none of us knew what might happen if we got sick, we didn’t know if we would take home a deadly virus to our young children, partners, or elderly parents. But we knew we had a job to do, and we did it. We’ve seen some terrific saves, and we’ve all seen sad losses. We came together and made things work, doing the best we could.

The facts: Even as early as March 2020, there were medications to prevent and treat Covid-19. The NIH discovered that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was effective against SARS (a coronavirus very similar to Covid-19) in 2005.[3] In March 2020, Prof. Didier Raoult, in France, was already using hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat Covid patients.[4],[5],[6] HCQ was being used successfully by doctors in many countries as a late March 2020, survey of doctors in 30 countries shows.[7] At the same time, America’s Front Line Doctors,[8] and others[9],[10] began speaking out about what they were seeing and how they were treating patients. One doctor even found that ventilation, though widely used, was the wrong approach and was killing patients instead of saving them.[11] There was no reason for patients to die of Covid-19, even in March 2020, since there were successful treatments available. Today, there are more prophylaxis and treatment protocols that doctors are using to successfully preserve or recover their patients’ health and keep them out of the hospital.[12] Encouraging, as well, are the CDC survival rates for Covid-19 patients. Survival rates by age range in the US as of September 30, 2020, were as follows: Ages 0-19: 99.997%, Ages 20-49: 99.98%, Ages 50-69: 99.5%, Ages 70+: 94.6%. The low fatality rates and successful treatment protocols mean that there should be no need for anyone to worry about dying from the coronavirus.  Never before have we ever thought that healthy children can kill Grandma and we don’t need to now. [13]

Our struggle against COVID-19 has changed. For one thing, the “delta” variant, a naturally mutated strain of the original virus, has emerged as the leading cause of COVID-19 here in [redacted]. This variant spreads further and faster and it may in fact be more deadly than the original strain.

The facts: It is interesting that we were never warned about variants in all the months before the vaccines were rolled out. What changed since then? While the Delta variant may be more contagious, scientists have not found it to be more deadly.[14]

With many of our older patients being fully vaccinated, most of the hospitalized are the unvaccinated. And as of this date, all our patients on ventilators are unvaccinated. Let me say that again. All of our patients on ventilators are unvaccinated. Last week in the ICU at [redacted], we averaged one death a day. Sadly, the average age for those that died was just 36. You read that right, 36. The age range was 22 to 49.

The facts: The statistics quoted by the doctor don’t match those coming out of Israel and several other highly vaccinated countries, where most of those who are hospitalized are the vaccinated.[15],[16] The CDC only considers people to be fully vaccinated 14 days after they received the last available dose.[17],[18] We must ask why these patients are being put on ventilators when it has been shown to be the wrong treatment and there are life-saving drugs, such as budesonide[19] and ivermectin,[20],[21] that can be used safely. There’s also an issue of vaccine shedding or transmission that, at least for Pfizer, was a concern during the trials[22] and can also be the reason why young, unvaccinated people are suddenly being affected.

Now, the disease is largely preventable. All of you have seen how we’ve managed to avoid getting sick here at work by wearing PPE. We can’t lead our lives outside the hospital with a poorly fitting blue gown and foggy face shield on! But we can protect ourselves by getting vaccinated. Not only are we protecting ourselves with the vaccination, we also protect our loved ones, our friends, our coworkers, and our patients.

The facts: Handwashing,[23] rather than masks, may have been responsible for the low rate of infection among hospital staff since PPE hasn’t proven to keep the virus in check. Many studies show that masks don’t work against viruses and they come with their own health risks.[24] If hospital workers didn’t get sick during the pre-vaccine period, it means that whatever they were doing outside of the hospital was working, as well. As such, there should be no more reason for concern about lives outside the hospital now, than there was before the vaccines were rolled out. We also know that the vaccines do not prevent vaccinated individuals from getting sick, transmitting it to others, or dying,[25],[26] which is why people who’ve been vaccinated are still getting sick with Covid[27] and masks, quarantine, testing, and other measures, including among the vaccinated, are being reintroduced. Even as the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for emergency use in December, Pfizer’s CEO said they didn’t know if it would stop transmission;[28] the WHO’s chief scientist was not sure that the vaccines would stop transmission either.[29] Additionally, they were only trialed for common cold symptoms and not for prevention of serious illness, hospitalization, or death.[30],[31] Pfizer’s warning to trial participants about the probability of vaccine shedding or transmission, through inhalation and skin-to-skin contact, means that there exists a strong potential for vaccinated individuals to adversely affect others.[32] The vaccinated may actually putting loved ones, friends, coworkers, and patients in jeopardy, rather than protecting them.  

With literally billions of doses delivered worldwide, we know that these vaccines are very safe, with very few side effects, and even fewer serious adverse events afterward. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen widespread disinformation spread about the vaccine. I have to admit, I ‘ve heard some really wild misinformation about the vaccine. It’s probably impossible to address each one—that’s kind of like playing “Whac-A-Mole.” But there are some common fears that I think can be quickly addressed.

The facts: Looking at VAERS,[33] data out of Israel,[34],[35] England’s Yellow Card Scheme,[36] and websites aggregating vaccine injuries,[37],[38] it is obvious that the vaccines are not safe, have many terrible side effects, and the long-term adverse events are not known as of yet. The FDA, in an October, 2020, meeting provided a draft list of 22 serious adverse events of the Covid vaccines that they were concerned about.[39]  

In early December 2019, scientists and doctors got together, at the WHO Global Vaccine Safety Summit, to discuss the traditional vaccines which have been in use for decades. They acknowledged that there is poor vaccine safety science; they do not know enough about long-term adverse events, nor do they have a way to do so; they obfuscate because they don’t know the reasons for death following vaccination; and admitted that what “anti-vaxxers” are saying is not misinformation. In their own words:   It is therefore impossible for anyone, including the doctor who wrote this letter, to say, with any degree of certainty, that the novel COVID-19 vaccines “are very safe, with very few side effects, and even fewer serious adverse events afterward”.

Here are some of the common ones I hear:

1. It will reduce my fertility.

Not true. This has been specifically examined in men and women and is just plain wrong.

The facts: The manufacturers did not study fertility effects of the vaccine in men and women during the clinical trials. In fact, pregnant women were excluded from them.[40] Many experts, however, are concerned about specific effects of the vaccine on fertility and have been speaking out about what they are seeing.[41],[42],[43]

I can get COVID from the vaccine.

Not true. There is no way possible for the vaccine to make you get COVID. It doesn’t rely on an attenuated live virus or virus culture to be made, so it can’t be infectious in any way. There’s also no mechanism for the virus to shed particles to others around you.

The facts: The public has been led to believe that since the vaccine doesn’t contain the virus and the spike protein is harmless we have nothing to worry about. What scientists suspected for quite some time, and ignored in the vaccine development process, was the probability that it is the spike protein which is responsible for most serious Covid symptoms and not the virus. Now scientists have proof that this actually is the case; researchers at the Salk Institute recently discovered the mechanism by which the spike protein causes most of the disease symptoms.[44] This means that the spike protein which vaccinated individuals manufacture in their cells can cause Covid-19. It is not harmless like we had been told. Pfizer’s concern about “environmental and occupational exposure of people who were not part of the “study intervention” (did not receive the vaccine) if they had close skin or inhalation contact with participants[45] means that there is a mechanism for shedding or transmission, even though they didn’t explain it.

I shouldn’t get the vaccine if I’m pregnant or planning on getting pregnant.

Not true. The vaccine is encouraged and safe for pregnant women. In fact, some of the sickest COVID patients we’ve seen have been otherwise healthy pregnant or post-partum women.

The facts: The vaccine may be encouraged for pregnant women, but that has been done without any real safety data. The Pfizer vaccine is only now being studied in healthy pregnant women who enroll at between 24-34 weeks gestation. [46] Miscarriages happen before the 20th week of pregnancy,[47] so Pfizer’s current study of pregnant women is not meant to determine whether women can get pregnant or if they will experience a spontaneous abortion (a miscarriage up to week 20 of pregnancy). Moderna recently began a small, observational study, of just 1,000 women, enrolling women who were exposed to the vaccine during the 28 days before their last period or any time during pregnancy. While the study will look at outcomes such as birth defects and pregnancy outcomes, this study, like the Pfizer trial, will not determine the effect that the vaccine has on fertility and the ability of women to get pregnant. Pfizer performed a biodistribution study to fulfill a requirement of the Japanese government. It showed that the nano lipids containing the spike protein mRNA dispersed throughout the body and accumulated, to a significant amount, in the ovaries.[48],[49] Since Moderna uses nano lipids also, we can assume that the Moderna vaccine nano lipids accumulate in the ovaries, as well. The first ever autopsy on a vaccinated individual provided scientists with surprising evidence that both the vaccine mRNA and the spike protein can be found circulating in the body.[50] They found that although the

… mRNA was supposed to stay in the injection site … it’s not. That means the spike proteins created by the mRNA will be in every organ as well, and we now know it is the spike proteins that do the damage.

We do not know what impact the nano lipids and spike proteins circulating throughout the body will have on a developing fetus. We also don’t know the effect that it will have on breastfeeding infants. As such, Covid vaccines should be considered Pregnancy Category X, pharmaceuticals which are contraindicated for women hoping to become pregnant or who are pregnant and not be promoted to them and to nursing women as perfectly safe. It is not a given that unvaccinated pregnant women who contract Covid-19 are sicker than their vaccinated counterparts. A meta-analysis of studies regarding pregnant and recently pregnant women diagnosed with Covid-19 showed that 75% were asymptomatic and that those who were more seriously ill had comorbidities,[51] putting them at a higher risk for serious symptoms even if they weren’t pregnant. A retrospective study found that “in hospital mortality was low in pregnant patients.”[52]

It’s too new.

We’ve been developing mRNA vaccines (the technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna shots) for nearly 20 years, and SARS-COVID vaccine research started with the SARS-COVID-1 outbreak in 2002. American researchers had a vaccine target identified within hours of the genetic sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in very early 2020.

The facts: No matter how long something has been in development, the first time it becomes available for use, it is considered new. This is the first mRNA vaccine to ever be made available for sale and use by the public. There is no history of its use in a human population and, therefore, it is new, very new. The Covid-19 vaccine is the first product that Moderna has ever had approved for use by the public. Oncologist, Dr. Tal Zaks, is the CEO of Moderna. mRNA therapies were initially being developed to treat cancers. In a 2017 Ted Talk, Zaks admitted that they are hacking the software of life.[53] No one knows what the short and long-term consequences of “hacking the software of life” will be. Despite the attempts, over many years, to develop a coronavirus vaccine, we have never had one before because of a phenomenon called antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) which was discovered to occur in test animals during other coronavirus vaccine attempts. The Covid-19 vaccines were developed despite this serious concern. Experts were concerned that “[i]f ADE occurs in an individual, their response to the virus can be worse than their response if they had never developed an antibody in the first place.”[54] The FDA, in their EUA authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine, admitted that although they saw no ADE as of yet, it remains a long-term possibility.[55] Vaccine manufacturers may have had a vaccine target identified quickly, but that does not mean the vaccine is safe, or that they got the correct target. They actually had it ready when there were hardly any Covid cases in the US and it hadn’t yet become a pandemic. Additionally, for many months doctors and scientists said that they didn't understand the disease. How can one make a vaccine for a disease that is not well understood?

It’s not FDA certified.

True, it’s not yet. The normal FDA certification process routinely takes up to two years! However, the normal studies performed for a drug to be released, which are called Phase III clinical trials, were completed and analyzed before the vaccine was released under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization in late 2020.

The facts: FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) is ordinarily allowed when a drug or biologic is need for public use in an emergency situation and there is no time to wait for all the studies and reviews to be completed.[56] (Already, in February and March 2020, the FDA provided vaccine manufacturers and doctors with immunity from all liability related to developing and dispensing any treatments related to Covid-19.[57]) The FDA did not require the manufacturers to complete all the studies and the manufacturers had not completed Phase 3 trials before giving them emergency use authorization. Phase 3 of Moderna’s trial is scheduled to be completed in October 2022.[58] Pfizer said they completed the final efficacy analysis of their Phase 3 trial in November 2020, even though the trial is still ongoing for another two years.[59] The primary completion date of the Jansen vaccine was Jan. 2021; the study completion date is not till 2023.[60] The normal vaccine development process can take 10-15 years or more[61] and even after 30 years, some vaccines fail in the development process. Most usual animal testing, which involves a couple of years of generational testing, was not done. [62],[63] Most egregious, however, is the fact that they started human testing before animal testing was completed, which has never been done before and which has never been allowed previously.[64] The rushed development process for the Covid-19 vaccines has been likened to building an airplane while in the air.[65]

These were very large trials with literally tens of thousands of patients enrolled that showed the vaccines worked both well and safely. These results are published and have been subjected to a very precise and detailed safety review by international experts. We do expect the Pfizer vaccine to be fully approved within a matter of weeks, and the Moderna vaccine shortly thereafter.

The facts: Peter Doshi, Senior Editor of the BMJ, one of the “international experts” who reviewed the trial data, discovered that, despite the “tens of thousands” of Pfizer trial participants (not necessarily patients) enrolled, the initial data showing 95% efficacy for their vaccine was really based on a very small sampling of trial participants who had minimal symptoms and a positive PCR. He also discovered thousands of participants who hadn’t been included in the efficacy study because, although suspected of having COVID, they tested negative.[66] He explained his findings:

All attention has focused on the dramatic efficacy results: Pfizer reported 170 PCR confirmed covid-19 cases, split 8 to 162 between vaccine and placebo groups. But these numbers were dwarfed by a category of disease called “suspected covid-19”—those with symptomatic covid-19 that were not PCR confirmed. According to FDA’s report on Pfizer’s vaccine, there were “3410 total cases of suspected, but unconfirmed covid-19 in the overall study population, 1594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1816 in the placebo group.” With 20 times more suspected than confirmed cases, this category of disease cannot be ignored simply because there was no positive PCR test result ... A rough estimate of vaccine efficacy against developing covid-19 symptoms, with or without a positive PCR test result, would be a relative risk reduction of 19% (see footnote)—far below the 50% effectiveness threshold for authorization set by regulators. Even after removing cases occurring within 7 days of vaccination (409 on Pfizer’s vaccine vs. 287 on placebo), which should include the majority of symptoms due to short-term vaccine reactogenicity, vaccine efficacy remains low: 29% (see footnote).

In addition to the misleading efficacy data, Doshi detailed other concerns about the Moderna and Pfizer trials which required the raw data in order to answer them. Any raw data that Pfizer will make available would not be for another 24 months, after study completion. Moderna’s data “may be available upon request once the trial is complete.” This would be sometime in mid-to-late 2022, since they plan to follow-up for 2 years. The data for the other vaccines will also not be available for scrutiny any time soon. Therefore, a very precise and detailed safety review by anyone is impossible at this point in time and could not have been done by other international experts any more than Peter Doshi could. Any approval issued by the FDA for Covid-19 vaccines will, therefore, not be based on proven safety and efficacy data from completed trials.

If you have other fears or concerns about getting vaccinated, you should know that I’m happy to answer questions confidentially and respectfully. The only dumb question is one you regret not asking. We have more ahead of us, but the best thing we can do together is get vaccinated. We do this for our families, each other, ourselves, and most importantly, our patients.

The facts: Geert Vanden Bosche, a prominent vaccinologist who has worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has put his career on the line to alert the public that the Covid variants are being caused by the vaccine; that it is dangerous to vaccinate during a pandemic for this reason.[67] Alarmingly, data from Israel, the most highly vaccinated country, shows a significant rise in cases and deaths following the third vaccine/booster shot. The following data are from the Israeli Ministry of Health dashboard.[68]

Vaccination and vaccinated individuals may, in fact, be propagating and spreading disease. This includes doctors and nurses in hospitals who can infect their patients. In conclusion: Good medicine is dispensed on an individual basis by practitioners who know their patient’s personal medical details and thoroughly understand the treatments they are recommending. Good medicine is not a blanket recommendation to a diverse population whose medical risks and profiles are unknown to them, for a treatment or prevention with which they are unfamiliar. It behooves this medical director, and others, to rethink their vaccination policies, for their own sake as well as that of their friends, loved ones, and patients. After all, as dedicated physicians, they must want to practice good medicine, too.

Thanks for all you do.   [redacted], MD, PhD, FCCP Medical Director, Critical Care, [redacted] President, [redacted] Lung Physicians

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