Letter to the editor: People are fearful of vaccine, not just defiant

Letter-writer Christopher Morelli (“No vaccine, no treatment,” Aug. 20, TribLIVE) says if people refuse to vaccinate and develop covid, they should not receive hospital treatment. Who gave Morelli the authority to play God and decide who lives or dies?

Let me educate Morelli on why individuals are fearful of the vaccine. The FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine Aug. 23, to be marketed as Comirnaty. According to its website, “an individual may be offered either Comirnaty (covid-19 vaccine, mRNA) or the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2.” And: “The FDA-approved Comirnaty and the EUA-authorized Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine have the same formulation and can be used interchangeably to provide the covid-19 vaccination series.” I find this confusing. Also, Comirnaty includes a warning about heart inflammation as a possible side effect.

I guess Morelli has not reviewed CDC and FDA’s VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) data regarding side effects or deaths after vaccines. VAERS reports more than 13,000 deaths and more than 600,000 reports of “adverse events” for people who received the Pfizer vaccine.

Many people believe individuals are just defiant or it’s a political statement when refusing the vaccine, but the truth is many fear how they may react to the vaccine. The decision is a family decision, not Morelli’s.

Pamela Anderson

Mt. Pleasant Township

Editor’s note: The CDC notes that VAERS data is gathered from health care providers, vaccine manufacturers and the public and therefore “may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental or unverifiable” and that “reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.”