The masses have taken to Facebook and Twitter to proclaim in pictures the virtues of getting their COVID-19 vaccinations. The elites are no better. In the greatest example of state leaders’ unrelenting narcissism and presumptuousness since Marie Antoinette, United States Vice President Kamala Harris even had her vaccine ceremoniously injected at the National Institutes for Health—naturally, long before us peons had access to 2021’s panacea.

As a friend wryly pointed out, what’s next? Are we to expect photographic evidence of people’s prostate exams and pap smears?

The connected world is a peculiar place—ideological bubbles, cancel culture, virtue signaling, social conformity in degrees Goebbels and the Glavlit could only dream. Social media influencers have become the twenty-first-century equivalent of the cool kids pressuring the isolated and awkward into taking up street drugs to dull the pain of an increasingly alienated existence.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, it’s no secret that big pharma, governments, and media have been inseparably intertwined throughout the pandemic like polyamorous lovers in a threesome-themed porno. All have advocated for prolonging prophylactic measures while pushing the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine onto an unsuspecting, scientifically illiterate populace. For them, their vaccine is their final solution for permitting us to returning us to a normal life.

Big pharma, governments, and media have advocated for prolonging prophylactic measures while pushing SARS-CoV-2 vaccines onto an unsuspecting, scientifically illiterate populace. For them, the various COVID-19 vaccines are their final solution for permitting us to returning us to a normal life.

But is it really? How safe can a vaccine rushed through emergency clinical trials really be? How are we supposed to trust the science done by pharmaceutical companies who stand to make billions? How can we trust the opinions of political elites, including Harris, who often take campaign contributions from these megacorporations?

Thoroughly tested vaccines are wonderful

Vaccines, in and of themselves, rank within humankind’s top five inventions. They brought an end to smallpox and polio and minimized the impact of dozens of other pathogens, dramatically extending life expectancy.

But each vaccine needs to be cautiously assessed on its own merits and never taken lightly. In the right hands, they are miracles. In altered forms, in the wrong hands, they could become biological weapons.

Each vaccine needs to be cautiously assessed on its own merits.

One can hardly accuse Pfizer and Moderna of anything but the best of intentions. After all, we’re tired of sitting scared at home, and if their vaccines truly remedy our boredom and return purpose to our lives, we should be pounding on the glass lobby doors to distribute the vaccine.

That said, I will not be the first in line.

But what about ones rushed through trials?

I get that deadly emerging infectious diseases call for expedient solutions. In fact, in concert with scientists and doctors far better credentialed than me, I once managed and co-authored a proposal to Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to create a center just for that.

But SARS-CoV-2 is not the Ebola virus. Only 1.65 percent of the world’s population has even reported contracting the virus. Only .03 percent died from it. 99.97 percent of the world’s population has survived letting the human immune system take its natural course.

While the COVID-19 vaccines appear to be relatively safe for now, the long-term consequences of the vaccine cannot possibly be known less than a year after their invention.

An while the vaccines appear to be relatively safe for now, the long-term consequences of the vaccine cannot possibly be known less than a year after their invention. Only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing—usually done on lab animals—ever make it to human testing. Of those, only 1 in 5 is approved. And this process usually takes 12 years. Whether you agree with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decade-plus process or not, it exists to protect human lives.

So why the rush?

Because COVID-19 is a public health emergency, according to the FDA. They assure us, “efforts to speed vaccine development to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have not sacrificed scientific standards, integrity of the vaccine review process, or safety.”

So if a vaccine can be approved in less than a year, then why does it take so long to test and approve everything else? Should we skeptical of the emergency approval process? Or skeptical or the standard approval process?

Let’s assume this is a resourcing problem. The government has thrown trillions of dollars and thousands of people at COVID-19 to expedite processes usually overseen by a couple hundred.

But as even COVID-19 vaccine proponents agree, even with a rigorous approval process, because we have only been distributing vaccines for a couple months, we cannot possibly know the vaccine’s long-term side effects or effectiveness (some are already claiming the virus will mutate) nor its side effects on those of us with pre-existing conditions, like dermatomyositis.

To vaccinate or not—a choice best left to each individual

Ultimately, the choice to vaccinate must be left up to the individual (or her guardian, at least). Like anything in life, she must weigh the risks against the outcome. She must ignore the peer pressure and the Kamala Harrises of the world. She must consider her own body and lifestyle and make the best choice for her.

As for me? I’m waiting for more testing on the immunosuppressed. One drug trial is enough for now.