We trust medical technology that keeps us healthy

To The Eagle:

Over 339 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine were given to 187.2 million people in the U.S. as of July 19, 2021. The vaccines have proven to be safe and effective. Vaccination is happening under the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history.

Clinicians who administer vaccinations are required to report adverse reactions to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System ( VAERS ), an early warning system designed to record all adverse events proximate to vaccination, in order to capture any previously unknown causal links between vaccination and an adverse event.

This means that a mild allergic reaction to vaccination, a fatal heart attack, drowning, or lightning strike soon after being vaccinated are all categorized by VAERS as adverse events. A person’s reported sudden death or illness after a recent vaccination is not proof that the vaccine caused the death.

VAERS has recorded seven thousand deaths proximate to vaccination. Three of those were linked to blood clots that occurred after Johnson & Johnson vaccinations. Reviews of the death certificates, autopsy results and medical records of the other 6,997 fatalities have failed to establish any causal links to COVID vaccination.

Vaccine adverse effects, also called vaccine injuries, happen rarely. VAERS detected 21 cases of anaphylaxis--severe allergic reaction--after administration of a reported 1,893,360 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. That’s 11.1 incidents per million doses.

The benefits of being vaccinated far outweigh the risks of doing so. I was vaccinated against COVID-19, just as I am vaccinated against the flu every year. I put my trust in the medical technology that has helped keep me healthy my entire life.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island