Letter to the Editor: To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? - The Delaware County Daily Times
To the Times:
On Dec. 29, 2020 at 10:35hrs I received my first of two vaccination injections of the Moderna vaccine. The following morning, the site of the injection was a little sore, slightly red, and felt warm; all signs that my body was reacting to something it wanted to fight. The reaction in my arm was about the same as the tetanus shot I received a few years ago when I cut my forearm on a chunk of shattered cinderblock. For the record, I did not suffer from the bone breaking spasms and 10% mortality rate associated with "lockjaw." The tetanus toxoid vaccine did its job, a vaccination that is repeated every ten years.
With a fresh band-aid on my arm, I called my 87-year-old mother on the way back from the Chester County Government Services Center to tell her that I had received dose number one. My mother, Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon McCans, was born and raised in Haverford Township. She has childhood memories of "Quarantine" signs on houses where the now eradicated, nearly eradicated, or treatable diseases of measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis and the dreaded polio were present inside. She was aware that her mother had lost a 5-year-old sister to pertussis (whooping cough) and two brothers to the 1918 flu epidemic (aka H1N1, we held mass vaccinations for that virus in 2009). Three of the five Kelly children did not reach adulthood. Mary Kelly and one brother survived. My mother never missed or delayed an appointment for my brother and I with Dr. Brogan, our pediatrician. Only those who never saw the small coffins, viewed those walking with leg braces, visited a friend in an iron lung, heard the telltale "whoop" of a child's swollen airway, or witnessed the horrible spasms of tetanus are casual about vaccination dates.
During my mother's childhood, vaccinations were securing the food supply of a growing nation. Vaccinations for a multitude of bovine, porcine, and avian diseases were developed to insure that milk, eggs, beef, poultry and the associated food and medical products remained in adequate supply. Vaccinations protected our military ranks, food, work force, and home-front for a world war. I wonder what Haverford Township would be today had our nation not been able to field an army for the European and Pacific theaters, provide for our allies, or was unable to support those forces across thousands of miles of ocean and land.
In the Pacific theater, we controlled the symptoms of malaria in the jungles with quinine. Today a malaria vaccination is in the final testing stages. Interestingly, we never developed "Herd Immunity" to malaria, smallpox, HIV, hepatitis, the common cold, chicken pox and so on and so on.
Herd Immunity? There are those who blurt out the term as if it was the Law of Gravity. It is the theory that if 80% to 94% of the survivors build resistance to a pathogen via infection or vaccination, then the remaining 20% will not be infected because there are not enough hosts to spread the disease. Essentially the argument among the unvaccinated says, "You should get the disease so I don't get the disease" and ignores the "vaccination" portion of the theory. What this theory does not address is the term "survivors", no research addresses how many deaths occur, as it is not important to the formula. The formula is based on those who are still alive. The proponents do not discuss asymptomatic spread. In other words, "How will the 20% stay away from the infected?" We no longer live in Medieval villages where quarantine of an entire town is possible. It has been noted that, statistically, we come in near or close physical contact with more people in a month than Jesus did in his lifetime.
We are not the only beneficiaries of vaccinations. Rabies, distemper, parvovirus, Bordetella Bronchiseptica, and many other diseases remain in check and give our pets longer, healthier, and happier lives. Some may recall in the book or 1957 classic movie "Old Yeller," the dog must be put down because he contracted rabies. My mom recalls a flood of people taking their animals to the veterinarian for rabies vaccination after seeing the movie.
Please consider this partial record of medical successes over pathogens:
● Chickenpox (Varicella)
● Diphtheria
● Flu (Influenza)
● Hepatitis A
● Hepatitis B
● Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b)
● HPV (Human Papillomavirus)
● Measles
● Meningococcal
● Mumps
● Pneumococcal
● Polio (Poliomyelitis)
● Rotavirus
● Rubella (German Measles)
● Shingles (Herpes Zoster)
● Tetanus (Lockjaw)
● Whooping Cough (Pertussis )
● Adenovirus
● Anthrax
● Cholera
● Japanese Encephalitis (JE)
● Rabies
● Smallpox
● Tuberculosis
● Typhoid Fever
● Yellow Fever
● Eradicated diseases
✔ Smallpox
✔ Rinderpest
● Global eradication underway
o Poliomyelitis (polio)
o Dracunculiasis
o Malaria
Regardless of these remarkable accomplishments, there are those who refuse to believe the facts, their own eyes, experiences, or the words of those who they trust in every other aspect of their lives. We can debate, but before embracing baseless internet claims; please evaluate this statement: "Correlation does not equal causation". For example; If a person receives a COVID vaccine and two days later dies of a heart attack. Are the events related? We must understand that a certain percentage of people will still have regular medical events in the days following the vaccination. If we change the scenario to the person dying due to being struck by a car. Do we draw the same conclusion of the vaccination being the cause of the car striking the individual? Perhaps the truest test is to honestly ask ourselves; "Do I know anyone who died of the vaccination and do I know anyone who died of Covid?" Then do the math.
I have heard the argument; "We don't know the long term effects of the vaccine!" While this may be true, we also do not know the long-term effects of COVID19. We do know that the risk for the longest-term COVID19 effect, death, is significantly lowered with vaccination.
When I am not working as the Chief of EMS in Haverford Township, I continue my tenure as a Critical Care Flight Paramedic on PennSTAR, the University of Pennsylvania's Critical Care Helicopter, and as an assistant professor of Forensic Medicine at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. 2022 marks my thirty-fourth year of transporting the area's most critical patients to tertiary facilities. Among the most ill patients, I have recently cared for were young, otherwise healthy patients, dying of the effects of COVID. In fact, each of the seven patients I transported on my last shift was suffering from COVID. Ventilators, multiple IV medications, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines, and a number of other life supporting measures were utilized in the attempt to save their lives. Less than 1% have a chance at getting a lung transplant. It is darkly ironic that some of the medications used to keep the patients alive as well as some of the medications needed post-transplant, are from the same manufacturers as the vaccines. It is most likely that each of the patients will die. Not one of them was vaccinated.
Enough with the rented refrigerator trucks used for additional morgue space and the special committees at medical facilities to create policies to ration ventilators. Please no more graveside bagpipes, flag draped coffins, and salutes to decorated public heroes who are now gone. Please preserve what medical providers, first responders, and essential workers we have left by getting vaccinated.
If you are considering changing from your strong stance against vaccinations, merely proclaim that you are finally satisfied with the science and recent information and be vaccinated.
Chief James P. McCans MS, NR-P, FP-C, Township of Haverford, Director of Emergency Medical Services.
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