Profit is not Science
I am a doctor in NYC (surgical resident). I received my two vaccine doses early last year during the first wave of the vaccine. Shortly after I starting having heart symptoms like palpitations and shortness of breath, going as far as not being able to climb stairs for months. Mind you, I was previously healthy and am in my 20s. This was before any information was known about the vaccines and side effects. With my challenging work hours, it was hard enough getting a primary care visit where I was asked over and over again if I have asthma, let alone follow up with a cardiologist. Thus, I was never formally diagnosed with what in hindsight sounds like myocarditis. Whether it was or not doesn’t change the fact that I had serious symptoms from the vaccine. Now healthcare works are being mandated to get boostered by next week, and my exemption application was denied. Why am I left to compromise my health for a booster?
It is true the booster can be effective in reducing the risks of hospitalization and mortality, but those risks are already small in someone within my population category (healthy, young). With known post-vaccine complications, for me the risks outweigh the benefits. In addition, the benefits are also limited by the waning immunity. For example, studies have shown the Moderna booster has waning immunity after about 4–10 weeks, with talks for a 4th shot underway. Will we have boosters enforced every 3 months? Not to mention the number of breakthrough cases despite having received the booster, my roommate being one of them. Plus, what role does the booster have for someone like me who had obtained COVID in December and has developed natural immunity, which has been shown to outlast the immunity from the booster?
What is most frustrating is the language Governor Hochul uses, that healthcare workers need to get the booster to be protected to serve the community. As though our individual rights and freedoms are insignificant when compared to the needs of the community. I am left with the decision to compromise my health, which in the face of 80 hour work weeks and the demands of residency, compromising my health for my career is not new. Or, I face losing my career, in effect going against the productivity this mandate is trying to enforce. Reactivity to an uptick in COVID numbers is not science. And infringing on individual rights because of my career choice is anti-American. With the mountain of debt I owe for my schooling, I have no choice but to compromise my health again. Knowing I will fall sick once more, there is a concern for malpractice: the notion that harm was knowingly chosen that could have been prevented. So I ask, who will be held accountable?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00090-3/fulltext#sec1
