If you, O Gentle Reader, were to happen upon Wendy Bell's FB page yesterday, you'd see this:
That's right. St. Barnabas Health System's own Angel of Death is spreading vaccine misinformation.
And this time, the fact-checkers at Facebook caught her.
How much
of her anti-vaccine list is simply wrong?
Let's see:
1. It's experimental.
I'm not really sure what Wendy means by "experimental" here. In this context,
however, it's obvious that she's looking to undermine the public's trust in
the vaccines' safety. Good thing Reuters
has already taken a look at this:
CLAIM 1 - “All the vaccines are considered experimental”
According to the post, all approved vaccines are considered experimental. This is not true – they have all been put through standard safety testing before being rolled out to the public.
Fullfact.org has more.
2. It's not FDA approved.
Good thing AdventHealth has an explanation of the "FDA Approval vs EUA" argument:
Although creating a new vaccine can sometimes take years, many pharmaceutical companies were able to quickly advance their development and distribution processes. Part of the speed is due to the use of the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) process. EUA means the vaccine can be approved by the FDA quickly compared to a traditional FDA-approval process, but that doesn’t mean it cuts corners when it comes to evaluating vaccine data, risks and benefits.[Emphasis added.]
And:
In order to issue an EUA, it needs to be proven that the vaccine may be effective in preventing a serious or life-threatening condition, and that the vaccine’s known and potential benefits can outweigh its known and potential risks. The FDA has said that in order for a COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to the public, including healthy people, they will only issue an EUA if a vaccine has demonstrated clear and compelling effectiveness in a large Phase 3 clinical trial.
And that's what happened, Wendy. Did you miss it?
3. My chance of survival is 99.97%
Good thing USAToday has already looked at this:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified to Congress in March that the mortality rate may be as low as 1% when accounting for people who are infected but don’t develop symptoms severe enough to be tested. To Fauci, given how infectious the new coronavirus has proven to be, that is a very dire figure.
A 1% mortality rate “means it is 10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu,” Fauci said. “I think that’s something people can get their arms around and understand.”
A 99% survival rate might sound promising. But when it’s scaled out to the rest of the country – all 329 million residents – a 1% survival rate takes on a different meaning.
The attending physician for Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court predicted early in the pandemic that 70 million to 150 million U.S. residents would contract COVID-19. A 1% mortality rate at that scale of infection is between 700,000 and 1.5 million dead – roughly the population of Washington, D.C., on the low end or the entire population of Hawaii on the high end.
4. Side effects are numerous.
Good thing the folks at Sloan Kettering have already looked at this:
The vaccine does not contain any live or inactive portion of the COVID-19 virus. It will not cause you to test positive on a test that looks for active COVID-19 infection. Some people receiving the vaccines have reported mild to moderate side effects, including pain at the injection site, fatigue (feeling tired), headache, and muscle pain. Not everyone gets side effects. But if you do, they are normal and a sign your body is building up its defenses against the virus.
7. I worry about the fertility of my sons.
This has to be the silliest point on Wendy's silly list. Good thing the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has already looked into this:
Joint Statement Regarding COVID-19 Vaccine in Men Desiring Fertility from the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology (SMRU) and the Society for the Study of Male Reproduction (SSMR)
As of January 9, 2021, there are no data about the impact of the COVID-19 vaccine on male or female fertility.
No data, Wendy. The usual anti-vaxx argument here is about womens' fertility (also false, of course) but you went that extra crazie-mile by including your sons.
Hey, isn't your husband an MD? Shouldn't you run this BS that you wrote on your BS board by him before embarrassing yourself in public?
Also, the more folks who follow your lead, the more they too will refuse the vaccine. Some of those folks will get sick. Some will pass it along to other people who'll get sick. Some of those sick people will die.
How'ya feeling about refusing the vaccine now, Wendy?