[Op-ed] COVID-19 Vaccines: Safe, Dangerous, or Mind Control?
The year 2020 can only be defined as an anomaly. No one could have possibly predicted the series of unfortunate events that have plagued this year. Coronavirus came and totally flipped our lives upside down, leaving us to adjust to a new normal. Since the first reported case of COVID-19 in the United States in early March, over 14 million Americans have been infected, with more than 270,000 recorded deaths.
Times have been bleak and our only hope of returning to any semblance of normalcy rides on an effective vaccine. However, there has been widespread public concerns and doubts over any vaccine that is approved and distributed by the government. Such speculation has led to a rise of various conspiracy theories that question the validity, intention and after-effects of a coronavirus vaccination.
An all too prevalent conspiracy is that the vaccine will contain a microchip that will be able to track your every move with the potential to control your mind. And who should be the deviant behind this malicious plot other than notorious super villain, Bill Gates.
That’s right, Bill Gates is taking over the world, baby.
The microchip conspiracy originated when a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a research article in Science Transitional Medicine describing how they developed dissolvable microneedles that can distribute a vaccine along with ‘quantum dots’ (QDs) or patterns of near-infrared light-emitting micro particles to the skin, intended to record vaccinations.
Conspiracy theorists believe that these QDs are a front and actually contain trackable microchips. Kevin McHugh, the lead researcher on the quantum dots project, admitted to NPR that he was startled by the notion.
“There is no microchip at all, I don’t even know where that comes from. All the quantum dots do is produce light,” explained McHugh.
QDs are intended to assist in recording vaccinations. Keeping accurate medical records is a significant challenge in low-resource or impoverished settings where well-maintained centralized databases do not exist, leading to 1.5 million vaccine-preventable deaths annually.
Gates was linked to MIT’s quantum dots project because the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, provided the financial support. The Gates’ foundation focuses on translational medicine and advancing novel drug and vaccine candidates.
Many, however, have questioned the real intentions of Gates and his foundation, as the ultra-wealthy are often viewed as the controllers of the world, conspirators of chaos manifested only to maintain their status. And what better way to do that than to create a global virus, develop the vaccine and implant people with microchips that can track and control us, right?
In May, Yahoo News and YouGov conducted a poll asking people if they believe Gates wants to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign to implant microchips to track people.
Astonishingly, 44% of Republicans agreed to this sentiment, along with 19% of Democrats and 24% of Independents.
Gates was asked about the origins of and why his name is attached to the microchip conspiracy in an interview with Norah O’Donnell on CBS.
“I don’t know, Dr. Fauci and I are sort of the two most mentioned,” Gates told O’Donnell. “Some of these are deeply ironic like our foundation is about reducing death and bringing equity to health and yet the idea we get accused of creating chips or the virus. I think we just need to get the truth out there. We need to explain our values so that people understand why we are involved in this work.”
Another conspiracy that has emerged centers around the idea that any vaccination for COVID-19 will permanently alter a person’s DNA. This theory emerged because most coronavirus vaccines in development are of a new type, known as messenger RNA or mRNA vaccines.
Previous forms of vaccines work by triggering an immune response through injecting a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies. Instead, mRNA vaccines combat against infectious diseases by teaching our cells how to make a protein that activates an immune response inside our bodies.
There are currently no licensed mRNA vaccines in the United States. However, researchers have been studying the potential of mRNA vaccinations for years, specifically against infectious diseases and cancer.
There are several benefits of mRNA vaccines. They allow you to protect against any future infection without the risk of having to inject the live virus that causes COVID-19. They are faster and cheaper to produce and the production is laboratory based, meaning the process could be quickly standardized and mass produced, which will enable a faster response against large outbreaks and epidemics.
There is a spreading belief that coronavirus vaccines are being rushed and that may expose us to unnecessary risks. Others are questioning the reliability of preclinical trials. While it is true that the process is being accelerated, any approved vaccine will be held to the same rigorous safety and efficacy requirements as all others in the United States.
Amid the controversy surrounding the doubts and concerns, Americans have become divided on whether to get vaccinated for COVID-19. According to an article by Pew research, the percentage of Americans who said they would take a coronavirus vaccine has sharply declined since earlier in the year.
About half of U.S. adults, 51%, now say they would probably get a vaccine to prevent COVID-19, falling from 72% in May. The amount of people who would definitely take a vaccine sits at a mere 21%, half of what it was four months ago.
This is not the first-time questions over the efficacy of vaccinations have arisen. Yet, we must remember that vaccines prevent millions of illnesses and save countless lives every year. Through vaccinations, the smallpox virus has been completely eradicated and the prevalence of polio, measles and other childhood diseases have been drastically reduced.
Coronavirus is next on the list.
A mRNA type vaccine being developed by Pfizer and Biontech has concluded the phase 3 study of a coronavirus vaccine candidate. With analysis demonstrating the prototype (BNT162b2) to be 95% effective against COVID-19, beginning 28 days after vaccination. No serious safety concerns have been observed, over 43,000 participants were involved in the study.
The companies also announced that they achieved the safety milestone required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Pfizer and Biontech plan to submit a request within the next days to the FDA to approve an EUA.
