Originally Posted by
rsvman
I have heard it all from the vaccine hesitant. You have named several.
1) It's not even a vaccine! This one, for some reason, is incredibly popular. I can't even remotely understand the logic behind the argument, but it goes something like this, "a vaccine, by definition, PREVENTS INFECTION. This does not prevent infection. Therefore, it is not a vaccine." So many holes, it's hard to know where to start, but I'd start by saying that most vaccines do not prevent infection. They are designed to prevent DISEASE. Also, if the anti-vaxxers hate vaccines so much, wouldn't it HELP their cause to call this one a vaccine? Then they could just say, "I don't like any vaccines, so I'm not taking this one." Seems to me like they are shooting themselves in the foot with this argument.
2) It hasn't been approved by the FDA! This one makes a little bit more sense, although a lot of the anti-vaxx crowd has no problem using or even being proponents of other things that are also not approved by the FDA, like, for example, hydroxychloroquine for Covid, lol. A lot of these people take echinacea, and St. John's wort, and even homeopathic remedies that are not even close to having FDA approval, so I'm not sure why FDA approval is so important in this particular case. Seems to me like they are using this argument just because it sounds like a reasonable argument. It's not. If we were not in the middle of a global pandemic, the FDA would have taken its time to review the studies and would have given full approval eventually. We just needed the vaccine to get out sooner, so they gave it an EUA, instead.
3) It's experimental, and I won't be a guinea pig! Technically, it's not really experimental now. The experiments were done already. Telling these people this fact does nothing to persuade them.
4) They made it WAY too fast! The argument here is that rapidity equals slip-shod, which isn't true in this case. The vaccines were in phase 1 experiments back in February of 2020 when most people were barely aware that there was a new virus afoot, well before conference basketball tournaments were canceled. Also, a lot of the time savings were in not having to wait for full FDA approval, and, most importantly, pressing forward with massive production during the time the FDA was reviewing the trial data.
5) It's a brand new technology! This is a variant of the "guinea pig" argument. While it is true that no prior vaccine was based on mRNA technology, this idea has been in development and preclinical studies for a couple of decades.
6) It's genetic material, therefore it will alter your DNA! A lot of people are espousing this one, which just displays a basic misunderstanding of how mRNA functions and what RNases are. There is zero possibility of this happening, but if you meet someone who enjoys this theory, there is nothing you can say that will change their mind.
7) The vaccine contains a microchip; the government/big business/big brother is just trying to track you! This one is particularly amusing, especially given that it is a favorite of people who pretty much spend their whole lives posting everything they do, everything they eat, and everywhere they go on social media. A subtext of this particular argument is that the entire pandemic is fictional, and/or deliberate ("plandemic") in order to get you to accept this chip. This chip, together with 5G, is going to be the end of society as we know it.
8) The vaccine is dangerous; lots of people have died from getting it! This one is gaining momentum as reports are appearing about people who passed away in temporal proximity to getting the vaccine. The fact that an extremely small percentage of people who got the AstraZeneca vaccine has suffered blood clots is not helping, either. Most anti-vaxxers are not necessarily getting into the nitty-gritty about different types of vaccines. For example, even to consider the idea/possibility that blood clotting could be an extremely rare adverse reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine but not the Johnson and Johnson, the Pfizer, or the Moderna vaccines is a bridge too far for these people.
There are others, but those are the main ones. Some Christians, and Catholics in particular, object to the Johnson and Johnson vaccine because the company utilized a cell line that was derived from an aborted fetus decades ago.
There are other arguments, but these are the ones I have heard most commonly.