In the late 1980’s I was a low-level telecom engineer working in Atlanta. Shortly after I started working there, my phone rang. It was a very irate woman complaining to me about how her IUD caused her to get sick. After a couple of tense minutes, I was able to calm her down and figured out why she was calling me. It turns out, that if someone neglected to dial the area code, my phone number was the same as the customer support number for the Dalkon Shield.
In the 1970’s, when the Dalkon Shield was developed, medical devices weren’t regulated. So, anyone could pretty much make anything and claim whatever to dupe the public into using their product. Because of the lack of regulations, the Dalkon Shield was allowed be sold untested and with no proof to back up its claim. And a lot of bad things happened because of it.
Nearly 200,000 women made claims against the A.H Robins company because, oftentimes, using the Dalkon Shield resulted in unintended consequences including unwanted pregnancies, serious illness and death.
But that was 40 years ago. Today, we have regulations in place to stop similar things from happening. Well, supposedly we do.
I am not an anti-vaxxer. I believe in vaccines and had no problem making sure our kid was properly vaccinated. Just last week I had a shingles shot. But I’m not taking this one.
Dubbed “Operation Warp Speed”, companies, and in some cases countries, are rushing to be the first to market with a vaccine for COVID-19. The FDA is going to fast-track the approval process. There are countless billions of dollars on the line. Anytime money, power or prestige is at play, people are going to cut corners.
Companies aren’t rushing this to market to save as many people as they can, they’re rushing to market to inject as many people as they can. They’re going to get paid by the dose, not by the number of lives they save.
Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but I think that if you’re making something you expect to use on billions of people, you should take the time to make sure you get it right.
Typically, it takes years for a drug to get FDA approval. In fact, it might take up to 15 years to research, develop and approve a new drug. But, Operation Warp Speed aims to accomplish that in just a few months.
We’ve all seen the lengthy list of potential side effects at the end of a commercial for the newest wonder drug. The list informs you of all the bad things that could happen to you if you take their drug. They have that list because the FDA made them do an exhaustive study to identify all the potential harm the drug could do.
Color me crazy, but I’m not interested in having a drug injected into my body that has been fast-tracked and compressed into such a ridiculously short timeframe.
I’m sure I’ll eventually get whatever vaccine they come up with. But not right away. Since the FDA isn’t going to require a long-term study to determine the safety of a COVID vaccine, I’m going to do my own. I figure two years is an appropriate amount of time to see if there are any adverse reactions from the vaccine. If, after two years, the long-term effects appear to be minimal or non-existent, I’ll probably give it a try.
Besides, the first people who get the vaccine should be those most at risk. One of them can have mine. If the drug is truly safe, then there should be no problem putting the infirm and elderly at the top of the list.
