October 13, 2021 Editor

The Hopkins doc vs. the vaccine consensus

photo above: witf.org

WN: Openness to the science from all directions is the key, surely . . . But decisions must also be made.

excerpts:

VIRAL UNBOXING — It’s easy to put a person in a box, to write someone off as an anti-vaxxer. But it isn’t always that simple.

Take Marty Makary, a professor of surgery and health policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has made a name for himself during the pandemic, partly through his appearances on Fox News shows like Tucker Carlson’s.

But while he’s certainly a contrarian pandemic pundit, he isn’t a fringe voice, nor a political one. He writes op-eds for places like The Washington Post and The New York Times. He told Nightly, unprompted, that he wasn’t a partisan, during an interview this morning. He had another piece published on the website for Fox News this morning, calling for new leadership at the FDA.

He also told me I could call him any time if I wanted to hear a perspective on Covid policy that was different from the “standard party line.”

Some on the left have said Makary is spreading misinformation, while some Republicans have accused him of being an alarmist. He’s argued against masks for children. He’s criticized the CDC for not conducting its own research on boosters. He’s pro-vaccine, but he opposes blanket vaccine mandates unless they’re for health care workers.

Lately Makary has been questioning whether children, especially boys, need two doses of a Covid vaccine. Once again, he falls outside the consensus of his fellow public health experts with his views.

Makary is particularly concerned about a condition known as myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, and its potential as a risk factor for young men after receiving the second dose of an mRNA vaccine. He’s proposed a one-dose regimen for young men, to lower their chances of developing the condition.

But other U.S. public health experts, like Mark R. Schleiss, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, told Nightly today that the vaccine is still the lowest-risk option.

Schleiss recommends getting your kids vaccinated with both doses as soon as you can. Follow the blanket recommendations. Protect your child before it’s too late.

“I stand by what I have been saying for months: the best Covid vaccine to get is the one you can get RIGHT NOW (today!),” Schleiss said in an email to Nightly. “Definitely less myocarditis after just one dose of an mRNA vaccine. But ‘less’…relative term…SO RARE to begin with!”

Please click on: Child Vaccinations

 

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Editor

Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.

Always appreciate constructive feedback! Thanks.