By Arjun Walia | The Pulse
Jimmy Dore, an American comedian and political commentator, recently made an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast and brought up his experience with side effects after receiving his second dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine.
Before we get into his story, let’s explore a couple of key points that often get politicized. This report comes from someone who got the vaccine, which means he ‘trusted the science’ and is not an anti-vaxxer.
Also, one of the biggest challenges in public health right now is that there is no reliable reporting system available for tracking vaccine injuries or deaths. In the US, the available system the CDC provides is called the Vaccine Adverse Events and Reporting System (VAERS). This is a passive system whereby reports must be sent by individuals for them to be tracked.
This is important because it means it is incumbent on the person injured, or their doctor, to report. But since most don’t know it exists or how to report, and physicians don’t often have the time nor ability to discern if a vaccine in fact injured someone, reports aren’t made that often.
While there is no accurate way of telling how often deaths or injuries caused by vaccines go unreported, experts who have attempted to study this data point have returned mixed results.
In a grant final report titled “Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS)” from 2011, the authors Ross Lazarus, Michael Klompas, and Steve Bernstein report that:
Preliminary data were collected from June 2006 through October 2009 on 715,000 patients, and 1.4 million doses (of 45 different vaccines) were given to 376,452 individuals. Of these doses, 35,570 possible reactions (2.6% of vaccinations) were identified. This is an average of 890 possible events, an average of 1.3 events per clinician, per month. These data were presented at the 2009 AMIA conference.
In addition, ESP:VAERS investigators participated on a panel to explore the perspective of clinicians, electronic health record (EHR) vendors, the pharmaceutical industry, and the FDA
towards systems that use proactive, automated adverse event reporting.
Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health. New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed.
The Pulse has reached out to these authors for further clarification around this data.
Other studies have looked more specifically at different vaccines and report that severe events get reported a lot more than mild ones, and reporting may be much higher than 1%.
Harvard published an article in 2021 called “How a CDC Database Is Fuelling Global Anti-Vaccination Sentiment” and while they tell an accurate story around how unreliable VAERS data is, there is no discussion around how much underreporting is taking place.
A spokesperson for the CDC told Reuters by email that reporting rates for adverse events vary, but again, no reliable numbers,
“Mild events, like a rash, tend to be reported less frequently than severe events (like a seizure). We have data to show that serious adverse events that occur after vaccination are more likely to be reported than non-serious adverse events. Events such as a sore arm at the injection site might not get reported since they are expected and therefore people don’t feel the need to report them.”
The bottom line is, no one knows, and there are no efforts being made by public health to create a meaningful and useful system, why? Why leave it up to ambiguity in what has become one of the most controversial issues of our time?
Is it not interesting to note that public health and government will do everything in their power to track and surveil COVİD cases but won’t bother to track and surveil vaccine injuries? They’ve known since at least 2011 that their system is unreliable, so why no effort to care for the public in this manner?
Back to Jimmy Dore. Following his tweets about his vaccine reaction, Dore said he was attacked and called “anti-vax” when he tweeted about his adverse reaction to the shot.
Dore has a rare bone disease called hypophosphatemic osteomalacia, potentially making him more prone to complications with COVID. Dore said his doctor recommended he take the vaccine as a result.
“No, I don’t trust the government or Big Pharma, but I trust my doctor who saved my life.” – Jimmy Dore
Dore noticed his reactions following his second jab, which he received in April. Dore went on to explain that even to this day he continues to experience fevers, body aches, joint pain, exhaustion and a stiff neck.
In contrast some might come out and claim that there is no proof that these symptoms came from the vaccine, and will likely move on from the discussion. Herein lays the problem.
We must be able to discuss, openly and transparently, what we are experiencing in life. It is not only an authentic expression of who we are and what we experience, but it helps us all move effectively through public health issues like what we face today. Censoring or shaming someone like Dore for his statements is akin to silencing the authentic expression of a child who is forced to conform themselves to society instead of being themselves. This leads to trauma. When we wonder why our society has become so disconnected and polarized, it’s no wonder when you consider our actions match the culture of conformity we were brought up in.
Dore also claims he was told by a doctor that he now has brain inflammation likely caused by the spike protein in the Moderna vaccine. This however has not been confirmed by any test, which does not mean it’s not worthy of further exploration.
“People started to call me ‘anti-vax.’ I’m like, ‘No I got the vax.’ When people have a reaction to an experimental vaccine that is not FDA-approved, you’re supposed to not suppress the reactions. You’re supposed to ask people what the reactions are so we can make the vaccines better.” – Jimmy Dore
Interesting, Dore said when he contacted his doctor to talk about his side effects, his doctor said he was treating five people just like him, including a neurosurgeon and a nurse.
“They were afraid to talk about their symptoms because they were afraid to be ostracized and stigmatized. What a messed up situation, when in this culture they politicize medicine where doctors and medical professionals are afraid to talk about their symptoms.” – Jimmy Dore
As many have brought up during this pandemic, Rogan shared an interesting perspective with regards to the public perception of Big Pharma:
“It’s also putting people in a position where Big Pharma is the good guy now, which has never happened before, especially the exact same companies people were openly criticizing in the past and pointing out lawsuits they lost for hiding information about test results and things that have happened during studies. And these same people are now ignoring any possible side effects.”
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This article (Comedian Jimmy Dore Said His ‘Symptoms Never Went Away’ After Second Moderna Shot) was originally published on The Pulse and is published under a Creative Commons license.