I’ve finally had my first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Maybe.
What a face, huh?
Nova Scotia has picked up its vaccination pace in recent weeks, and I’m old enough to qualify for the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine (or the AstraZeneca one, if it’s reintroduced; no sign of the one-and-done Johnson & Johnson shot here yet). Naturally, I decided to go with…a Phase 1/Phase 2 trial of a new vaccine which hasn’t been officially approved yet.
The first volunteers have been selected for a vaccine trial of COVAC-2, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Vaccine and infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask).
“We are excited to start clinical trials,” said VIDO Director Dr. Volker Gerdts. “Our team has worked hard to advance the development of this vaccine to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The trial was designed as a combined Phase 1/Phase 2 study. Phase 1 will vaccinate 108 healthy volunteers in a placebo-controlled study at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology (CCfV) in Halifax. Two doses will be administered to each volunteer 28 days apart.
“The goal of this trial is to help demonstrate vaccine safety in people,” said CCfV principal investigator Dr. Joanne Langley. “As part of this, we will monitor the health of the volunteers for a year after their vaccination.”
Why would I go with this trial instead of one of the approved vaccines? I figure it’s my own extremely small contribution to fighting this pandemic and helping bring yet another vaccine - a Canadian one, at that - to market.
And while I’ve never shown much aptitude for science, instead devoting my attention to writing gooder, I have taken a tremendous interest in the race between pharmaceutical companies and governments to get COVID-19 vaccines tested and approved, and I think it would be interesting to see the process up close.
The trials are being done at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology, based at the IWK hospital in Halifax. My own children were born in that hospital and both have been treated there, so I am more than happy to do them this favor. And, yes, they do give the test subjects gift cards - to Walmart, Amazon, or some supermarket chains - to compensate them for their time, and I could use a new Keurig machine.
But the main reason I’m taking part is because of the great motivator behind so many of the most momentous decisions in history. Patriotism? Faith? Altruism?
Pure, unadulterated spite, baby.
Even before I became the father of a child on the autism spectrum, I took an extremely dim view of hucksters and quacks who say autism is caused by vaccines. And now I see them as saying they’d rather lose a child to an infectious disease than have him or her turn out like mine. I take this very personally.
Things have only gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic started. A recent report says just twelve people are responsible for the overwhelming majority of vaccine misinformation online:
Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts.
Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, but many others are holding out, these 12 influential social media users stand to have an outsize impact on the outcome.
After this story published on Thursday, Facebook said it had taken down more of the accounts run by these 12 individuals.
These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.
[…]
As the social networks have cracked down, some previously prolific spreaders of vaccine misinformation have toned down their posts and have told their followers they are being censored.
Take anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the "Disinformation Dozen" identified by the center, who has promoted the long discredited idea that vaccines are linked to autism. During the pandemic, he has shared baseless conspiracy theories linking 5G cellular networks to the coronavirus, and suggested, without evidence, that the death of baseball great Hank Aaron was "part of a wave of suspicious deaths" tied to vaccines.
None of that is true.
Kennedy was kicked off Instagram, which Facebook owns, in February over repeatedly sharing debunked claims.
Yet Facebook did not remove him from its namesake platform. He told NPR the company has flagged some of his posts, however, so he has become more cautious.
"I have to post, like, unicorns and kitty cat pictures on there," he said. "I don't want to give them an excuse."
He also uses it to promote his website and newsletter, where he makes claims he cannot on the social network.
You knew Robert Fucking Kennedy, Jr. - that is what the “F” stands for [citation needed] - would be a part of this. He’s by far the most famous name in the report, but some of the others rack up millions of shares on social media.
No prizes for guessing who ultimately gets blamed for killer mind-control vaccines:
I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, and not to be too picky about which vaccine they get. I had every intention of getting the much-maligned AstraZeneca shot before the VIDO trial opened up, and if it turns out I got the placebo this time around, I’ll be happy to take it.
But this is an even better way for me to put my money where my mouth is, and display just how much confidence I have in the #GlobalElite #NewWorldOrder medical establishment. We wouldn’t have any medications at all if no one, ever, was willing to be among the first to try them.
And if the vaccine does indeed have Bill Gates’ 5G nanobots as an ingredient, that’s okay. It might make my cell phone reception even better, and in any event, Gates has more important things to worry about these days than controlling my mind.