I would like to offer a perspective that I believe all governing bodies are missing when it comes to vaccinations – especially the COVID vaccine.
I believe nearly 100% of all people would find that vaccines are logical. Yes, they are not without some drawbacks and risks, but for the most part they serve the greater good for preventing all sorts of diseases which could and often do have dire consequences. I have always been for vaccinations, and I have taken all that I can get without hesitation. Intellectually, it makes no sense for anyone to not take a vaccine except under extenuating circumstances.
Nevertheless, our constitution cannot force people to take vaccinations.We cannot legally require vaccinations under any circumstances. Thus, we are left with trying to persuade people to vaccinate, and these persuasion tactics often have little net positive effect.
In my opinion, the issue about having any vaccine is one based on fear.
For the COVID vaccines, fear has been especially rampant, and the harder pro-vaccinators push to persuade, threaten, require, or try to force a person to take a vaccine will only result in an equal and forceful resistance, oftentimes in my experience to the point of ridiculousness … or maybe even violence.
With the COVID vaccine, we are faced with many factors that bring up fear in ways that have been unprecedented: the rate at which the vaccine was developed; how the vaccine was developed; the deep involvement of our mostly corrupt political system; the ever-growing distrust of the medical profession; viral social media reports, which if repeated over and over, become “truth”; major news outlets, health departments, and our own dental profession continuing to push people to take the vaccine.
We have to stop all tactics that are currently being taken if we want to eradicate this life-threatening and life-shortening disease which will continue to seriously effect our economy, add debt to our national economy that our children and maybe their own children will be paying for their entire lives, and create hurt, division, and even perhaps violence as intelligent people who do not want to have the COVID vaccine become confrontational with those who are pro-vaccination.
Do we really want those outcomes?
If those of us in the health care community want to support vaccination, it’s mandatory we listen unconditionally and without prejudice. We let people talk about their fears and concerns about being vaccinated. We stop pushing, threatening, coercing.
In time, some people who will not take vaccinations may decide to vaccinate. Some may never vaccinate. It is their personal choice, despite how it affects our population as a whole.
Unless we learn from history, it will repeat itself again and again and again.
Don Deems, DDS, FAGD, PCC