The Side Effects of Covid Vaccines – The New York Times

Let me start with a disclaimer: The subject of todays newsletter will make some readers uncomfortable. It makes me a little uncomfortable.

The Times has just published an article about Americans who believe they suffered serious side effects from a Covid vaccine. More than 13,000 of them have filed vaccine-injury claims with the federal government.

My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli tells some of their stories in the article, including those of several people who work in medicine and science:

Ilka Warshawsky, a 58-year-old pathologist, said she lost all hearing in her right ear shortly after receiving a Covid booster shot.

Dr. Gregory Poland, 68 no less than the editor in chief of Vaccine, a scientific journal said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first Covid shot.

Shaun Barcavage, 54, a nurse practitioner in New York City, has experienced a ringing sound in his ears, a racing heart and pain in his eyes, mouth and genitals for more than three years. I cant get the government to help me, Barcavage said. I am told Im not real.

This subject is uncomfortable because it feeds into false stories about the Covid vaccines that many Americans have come to believe namely, that the vaccines are ineffective or have side effects that exceed their benefits. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, has promoted these stories, as have some Republican politicians and conservative media figures. The scale of misinformation, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins University told Apoorva, is staggering.

So let me be clear: The benefits of the Covid vaccines have far outweighed the downsides, according to a voluminous amount of data and scientific studies from around the world. In the U.S. alone, the vaccines have saved at least several hundred thousand lives and perhaps more than one million, studies estimate. Rates of death, hospitalization and serious illness have all been much higher among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated.

Here is data from the C.D.C., in a chart by my colleague Ashley Wu:

Not only are the vaccines benefits enormous, but the true toll of the side effects may be lower than the perceived toll: Experts told Apoorva that some people who believe Covid vaccines have harmed them are probably wrong about the cause of their problems.

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The Side Effects of Covid Vaccines - The New York Times