FDA approval will not change anti-vaxxers' minds -- but it does make vaccine mandates possible
Last week, Dr. Anita Sircar, an infectious-disease physician in Los Angeles, wrote a moving piece for the Los Angeles Times about how doctors are losing compassion for COVID-19 patients, almost all of whom are willfully unvaccinated. She opens the article with a story of a 40-something father of two she had as a patient. His excuse for not vaccinating? "I was just waiting for the FDA to approve the vaccine first. I didn't want to take anything experimental."
As Dr. Sircar notes, this is the same man who "started taking some hydroxychloroquine he had found on the internet," only to find it didn't work. In the hospital, she offered to treat him with Remdesivir, which had been under the same emergency use authorization as the vaccines "for most of last year and had not been studied or administered as widely as COVID-19 vaccines." While he accepted this much more experimental treatment, just as he experimented on himself at home, it was too late. He died.
To be clear, the man's actual objection was not, as he said, that he "didn't want to take anything experimental." No, the likely reason was a right-wing propaganda blitz that has convinced Republican voters that refusing the shot is the best way to stick it to President Joe Biden and the hated Democrats. These are folks who booed Donald Trump himself for promoting the vaccination. The "FDA approval" excuse was only rolled out because even Trumpers know that saying "I'm risking COVID-19 to own the liberals" out loud sounds dumb. But remember, these are the same folks who reject the FDA's advice against eating horse paste.
Link to tweet
Yet far too many folks in government and media continue to confuse excuses for the actual reasons for vaccine refusal.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/fda-approval-will-not-change-anti-vaxxers-minds-%e2%80%94-but-it-does-make-vaccine-mandates-possible/ar-AANH2Vu