WEBVTT - Doubt, Part One: Rumor Has It 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.280 I was never a Manhattan guy, but I was down 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:13.640 in town before. You know, like a few times you 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.520 couldn't make anything out like it was just everything was 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:27.120 just snipe destroyed. I just stood like gigantic whole rubble everywhere. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:33.120 On September eleven, Jonathan Dematto was working as an emergency 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.559 medical technician in the Bronx. By the time he was 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.919 able to get from his station to the Financial District, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.080 it was dark. He helped search for people among the rubble. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.519 Lots of smoke, lots of uh yeah, I guess from 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.120 the fires that were all They're lots of smoke. It 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:56.200 was definitely something on the embassy. Again. He was a kid, 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.120 only twenty two years old and on the job for 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.240 maybe a year. John is now a lieutenant paramedic with 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.280 the New York City Fire Department. He's grown a bit 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:08.919 numbed to the daily stresses of his line of work. 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.560 A lot of these things don't get to me. Not 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.399 not that I don't I don't the late because I 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.120 do relate. But if I let everything get to me, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.800 I would never be able to do this job. In 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.760 two decades on the job, there had never been a 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.440 day quite as insane as September eleventh, it stood out 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.039 for him as maybe the most extreme moment in his career. 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:42.760 That was until March. On this Monday night, ramping up 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.480 the response to the COVID nineteen outbreak, we're seeing the 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.520 epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak shift here to the United States. 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.000 Bad News New York City coronavirus cases sore now accounting 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.720 for one third of all cases in the US, and 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.520 to stop the spread of the virus, government were taking it. 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.160 John says the intensity of nine eleven doesn't even come 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.720 close to what he has endured over the past year. Now, 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.400 in addition to saving lives, it frequently feels like he 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.400 is also risking his own. Clearly, when masked up, we 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.399 have goggles on. You know that you're protected, but you're 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.560 exposing yourself to this every single day versus that was 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.080 a one time event. Since March, the looming threat of 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:32.960 contracting COVID nineteen has been unyielding for John. This is 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.280 every day. Hopefully you don't get it today, you know, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.880 hopefully you protect yourself properly and whatever the case is. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:45.600 Just after Thanksgiving, John shared an article from CNBC on Facebook. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.919 It suggested that doctors needed to warn people that vaccines 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:55.680 might come with side effects. The article clearly annoyed him. 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.480 He thought concerns about vaccines were overblown and people should 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.880 just get there as soon as it was available. Here's 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.360 John reading has posed. Of course you should know the 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.000 side effects. Does it matter? Though the virus has shut 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.680 the entire world down for almost a year. People have 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.640 lost their way of life. Our kids are definitely going 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.040 to be the stupidest generation for all the school they 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.519 have missed. Families are ruined. But make sure you don't 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.920 get vaccinated because of the side effects. I get it. 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:31.600 Someone agree, but oh well. Then his ant texted him. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.440 She was like, you know, listen in the end, do 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.480 what you want. But um, I'm gonna send you a 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.200 few things. So my aunts and nurse. She's in disease control. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.360 So I said, all right, I said, let me look 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.760 because I'm I say anti factor, I was never I'm 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.720 still not an anti factor. Like I get my flu shot, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.880 I don't technically believe in it. It's only accurate. One 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.800 video John's aunts to him was especially persuasive. Most of 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.760 the information in the video was not true, but John 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:10.520 didn't know that. Historically coronaviruses of vaccines for coronaviruses have 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.760 had a terrible safety record. The video shows an older, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.240 bespectacled man in a boxing suit at a podium. We've 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.640 decided to not name the person in this video in 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.279 hopes of avoiding spreading this kind of misinformation. The concerns 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.040 he raises would be pretty terrifying if they were true. 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.680 He suggests that drugmakers were ignoring major safety issues in 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.560 the interest of rushing a vaccine to market as quickly 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.200 as possible. Once I saw that video and the literature 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.680 she was sending me, I was like, man, how I 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.680 didn't even consider not getting it? And I if I 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.080 didn't know it was an R and A type sequence, 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:58.520 what else do I know about it? You know? What 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.240 John's referring to here is the fact that both the 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:06.440 Maderna and Fiser covid vaccines use a technology called m RNA. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.880 A lot of vaccines people are familiar with, like the 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.640 ones for polio and the measles, work by using a 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.440 tiny amount of weakened or inactive virus to trigger an 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.919 immune response. Initially, John had just assumed that's what the 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:28.080 covid vaccines were, but m RNA vaccines instead teach the 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.720 body how to produce proteins that spur an immune response. 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.039 It's kind of like an instruction manual for how to 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.800 fight COVID. There's a lot of excitement over m RNA 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:44.200 vaccines because it's way faster and easier to develop them. 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.479 They don't require growing large amounts of a virus and 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.040 then taking the time to weaken or inactivate it, and 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.120 m r n A vaccines have been studied before for 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:59.360 the flu, zekea and rabies. Cancer research has also used 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.839 mRNA to trigger the immune system to attack cancer selves. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:05.880 All of this is to say that this may be 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:10.960 a newer technology, but it is definitely not an unknown one. 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.280 Everything we know at this point suggests the m RNA 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:21.599 vaccines are not only safe, but extremely effective. Still, it's 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.880 true that there has never been an m RNA vaccine 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.599 on the market, and the video pointed out to John 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.920 that this was just yet another aspect of the pandemic 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.400 that felt uncertain. I really don't know much about it, 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:40.120 and to be honest, I'm I'm a little skeptical about 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:45.800 the whole the way the RNA does its thing, you know. Um, 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.120 I'm a little skeptical about it. The video was convincing. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.840 Here was this guy whipping out all of these big 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:58.960 scientific terms, speaking passionately, seemingly pleading to anyone who would hear, 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.719 that we are putting everyone at risk with this vaccine. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.560 And then when my aunt sent me this video, when 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.120 I was watching it, this one in particular, doctor I 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.560 started talking about how he identified an issue with the protein. 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.000 When John saw that video, it planted the tiniest seed 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:23.600 of doubt in his mind about getting the vaccine. Suddenly, 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:28.720 the potential side effects didn't seem that irrelevant anymore. What 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:30.840 if I take it and something happens to me down 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.440 the road, I'm torn between both, you know, I really 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.520 am a torn between both. So then I started doing 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:40.600 my research on the on the actual doctor who did 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:45.880 the video, and everything came back like positive on the doctor. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.120 John felt like he needed to learn more about what 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:53.240 the skeptics were saying about this vaccine. He spent hours 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:57.200 researching them. And if you go looking for this stuff 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:01.080 on the internet, it is not hard to find information 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.840 that confirms your worst fears. It's very, very scary stuff. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.280 I've been a doctor for a long time. Before me, 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:13.160 my father is a doctor. I'm not anti vaccine, definitely. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.440 You should not be calling this the COVID nineteen vaccines. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:20.400 The reason is, whatever you call it, it's experimental. I 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:22.320 don't really want to be the first person to take 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.760 grand new things when it comes to medicine. How many 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.880 of those happily queuing up to be vaccinated, no that 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:34.000 The list of possible adverse event outcomes what most people 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:39.000 call side effects, includes the following on various syndrome transverse 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:46.880 myelitis myelitis and capalo myelitis meningitis. And the game is 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:51.680 to prevent the therapies till everyone is infected and push 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:58.040 the vaccine. Convulsions, stroke, nocalypsy, cataplexy, and they'll kill millions, 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:03.960 as they already have with their vaccines, kill millions, venus 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:23.280 authoritis death. You really don't do the law sque The 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.160 more he read and watched, the more John's tiny theed 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.160 of doubt grew. One text from his aunt had taken 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:36.000 John from vaccine advocate to full blown skeptic. I was 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.679 so blind, I didn't even look to see what the 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.160 other side, what the people who are not getting the vaccination, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.440 and why I didn't even consider it, like It wasn't 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:48.400 even a thought in my head, like why would I 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.360 not get the vaccination. I didn't know it was an 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.559 RNA type vaccination. I still I thought it was a 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:00.280 weekend fly virus. So after I started doing research, I 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:02.600 was like, Okay, I understand why some people aren't getting it. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:10.200 John is not alone. A February pupil found that about 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:15.240 thirty of Americans did not plan to get vaccinated. That 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:20.880 number was actually an improvement over earlier polls. Those numbers 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:25.040 are troubling. Some experts suggest that they are probably not 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:34.720 high enough for the vaccine to work. How do we 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.720 get to this point, to a point where even healthcare 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:42.960 workers are suspicious of the vaccines. If anybody understands the 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.040 toll of this virus, it's people on the front lines 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:52.480 like John Sure. Their online conspiracy theories and the way 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.840 some coronavirus vaccines have been made is kind of new. 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:01.240 But the thing is, this crisis in public confidence didn't 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.720 start in March, or with the development of a COVID 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.080 nineteen vaccine, or even with the misinformation heavy presidency of 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:15.560 Donald Trump. It has been brewing for a long long time. 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:25.000 I'm Christophe Brown, a healthcare reporter for Bloomberg News. This 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.560 is Doubt, a podcast from Prognosis. We're going to tell 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.720 you a story about how vaccines have gone from something 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:40.080 viewed as harmless, routine, and life saving to something polarizing, protested, 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.720 and feared. Over the past year has felt like the 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:50.880 once fringe concerns about vaccines have suddenly gone viral. This 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.240 is not a podcast about science. This is a podcast 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.520 about how people come to hold their beliefs. We know 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:05.920 vac scenes are safe and effective, but we'll show how mistrust, misinformation, 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.920 and the Internet all undermine that fact. In the past year, 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:18.240 we've seen that growing vaccine hesitancy has serious consequences. It 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.959 has made it that much harder to control the pandemic. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.840 John the paramedic, still remembers the very first COVID nineteen 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:54.040 case he treated. It was a gentleman who sick, not 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:59.280 terribly sick, but sick, really weak, hell short of breath. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:04.120 This was April of last year. As a lieutenant, John's 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.880 job involves a lot of paperwork. The virus had already 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.640 been spreading for weeks before he went into the field 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.199 and saw someone sick with what seemed to be COVID. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:15.840 When he got to the scene, he didn't know what 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.560 to make of it. But not like you see some 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:20.200 people that I just can't read. He was just short 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.800 of you know. In the paramedics put the pulse socks 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.280 on them and it was like sixty. Pulse socks is 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.600 short for pul sock cimeter. It's a small device that 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.720 slides onto a person's finger and can measure how well 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.600 their heart is pumping oxygen through their body. Any reading 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.480 below ninety is low. Someone with a reading of sixty 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.720 like this man would usually be having a lot of 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.959 trouble breathing if they were conscious at all. This guy 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.720 was weak and pale, but only a little short of breath. 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.240 I've never in my life seen somebody with a sixty 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:59.960 like that looks fairly okay. But over and over throughout 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.360 the last year, John witnessed patients his blood oxygen levels 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:10.880 were dangerously low, yet looked relatively fine. It was weird 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.240 every job the cruise, whether the patient was just sick 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.040 or whether the patient was really short of breath or unconscious. 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.440 Every job, the pulse oxes was seventies and eighties, and 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.680 that's not something that you commonly see. When you're like 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.000 the first line work of seeing someone who's that sick, 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.000 and then the hospital doesn't even have to treat it, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.720 but yet you have to a lot of the cruise 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:38.960 got nervous and panic. All of this uncertainty around COVID 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.440 was a scary thing for John. He wasn't just worried 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.920 about himself when he saw COVID spreading like wildfire. He 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.400 was worried about bringing it home to his five kids, 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:55.720 and especially to his four year old son, Nico. It 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.520 was right after Nico was born they found some pretty 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.920 severe are issues with his heart. We were leaving, we 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.960 would leave in the hospital, were discharged, and that at 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.000 hospital a few like two or three years probably had 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.800 to implemented. A post office check comes down to the 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:20.160 post office. Did a post office check and his was 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.360 so if it's less than fifty, it gives an arrow 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:31.000 like less than and he popped up less than. Oh no, 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.360 I can't mean this keeps in the in the room 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.040 with us today like he's not the quote cyanotic, he's 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.520 not blue, he's not breathing heavy. How was this kid's 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.160 post office less? So they did it with another one, 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:46.960 the other machine, same thing that was it gone to 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.240 come upstairs, you know, brush from upstairs. I su su 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.640 did a whole bunch of tests. Within two hours. They 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:56.160 were like, we have to transform out. We'll go on 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:12.920 an ambulance. It turned out that Nico had multiple problems 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.280 with his heart. He was born without a pulmonary valve 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.560 and without the wall that divides the left and right 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:23.440 chambers of the heart. Nico has had so many surgeries 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.720 in his short life that John can't remember exactly how many. 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:33.880 He's gone through eight on nine surgeries, you know, um, 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.320 and still needs some down the road. People with heart 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.520 issues are especially at risk of developing severe cases of 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.040 COVID nineteen. The disease can also damage the respiratory system 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.680 and make it harder for the heart to work. If 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:48.960 I if I brought him in the room, you would 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.200 lookt him. You never even know he had all these surgeries. 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.760 He's like, amazing, But I don't want to get him sick, 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.760 you know. Back in the spring of John's job felt 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:05.640 especially dangerous. There was so little information about exactly who 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.200 was most at risk for the virus, and Nico was 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:14.480 waiting on a critical surgery to repair his heart. The 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.359 Fire Department offered hotels to first responders who are worried 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:22.440 about bringing the virus home to their families. I debated 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.440 taking this these hotels because they had them in every 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.080 borrow that they had, But but then I'm like, you know, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.600 am I gonna see my kids for weeks? On him? That? 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.080 And John couldn't very well leave his wife at home 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.359 with five kids to take care of by herself. John 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.320 has close cropped, dark hair and a thin mustache. He 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.399 looks young and projects the sort of zen attitude of 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.840 chillness about the state of everything. But when I talked 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.080 to him over Zoom, I can tell that he is tired, 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.479 reclining against the headboard in his bedroom. Other times, when 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.879 we talk kids, often in our the conversation that Nico 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:14.080 is that Nico Lorenzo. Why John now has more overnight workshifts. 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.040 They can go for sixteen hours, and he's constantly dealing 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.840 with his kids when he's home. It's not a stretch 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.560 to say that John is anxious for the pandemic lifestyle 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.600 to be over. He might be wary of the vaccines, 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.280 but he understands better than most people how serious the 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.760 virus is, and he's tried hard to protect his family 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.000 from it. And of course the clearest path out of 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:46.760 this for John and for everyone is mass vaccination. If 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.000 people get vaccinated, a virus like COVID just doesn't have 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.520 enough hosts to keep on surviving and thriving. Eventually, you 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.480 can't find anywhere to live, so it dies out. That's 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.760 how polio was eliminated from the US and many other countries. 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.160 That's why we don't really worry about tetanus or whooping cough, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:10.000 or at least until recently, the measles. And yet one 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.880 deceptively convincing video started John down a path that led 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:25.840 him to decide against getting a vaccine. So let's talk 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.560 a little bit more about that video, the one John's 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.800 aunt sent him. The man talking in this video is 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.399 a staunch vaccine skeptic. He's not a medical doctor, but 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.240 the head of an arcane research institute that supports research 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.560 into topics, including the risks of several vaccines. But his 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.720 first hit on Google suggested he was affiliated with a 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.080 well known university as well as the founder of a 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:56.600 medical journal. It's not a single vaccine manufacturer took heed 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.440 of my warning to remove those unsafe epitopes from thevaccines. 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.359 It's easy to see how a video like this might 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:09.159 make vaccines seem confusing and scary to anyone, especially in 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.280 a time plagued by the uncertainty of the past year. 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.680 Videos like this are designed to seem plausible. The man 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:22.040 spits off a litany of figures and complicated sounding biological terms, 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.520 insides research that he says is peer reviewed, but he 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:28.680 doesn't leave a whole lot of time for you to 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.879 think too hard about what you're watching. Before you can 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.040 sift through each scary claim, he's moved on to another. 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.119 The only single data point, the datum that we have 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:45.200 on what percentage of patients exposed human patients exposed to 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:49.639 a coronavirus vaccine have had serious adverse events. He's from 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:55.200 lit Darna trial and that number. It's big statements like 0:20:55.280 --> 0:21:01.120 this that people got seriously ill to make the video 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:11.920 so persuasive, but it's also just not true. In data 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.960 submitted to the FDA for authorization, Moderna reported that out 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.200 of more than fifteen thousand patients that received the vaccine, 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:24.760 about one experienced any serious adverse events, a number that 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.240 was about the same as people who received a placebo shop. 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:31.800 The number of serious potential side effects has been even 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.960 lower since distribution of it began. But the video was 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.600 recorded in October, before any of this data was out, 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:42.440 and the man in the video seems to be cherry 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.480 picking numbers from a very early trial of the vaccine 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:50.840 involved just fourteen people. But for John, there was now 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.360 doubt percolating in his mind where there had not been 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.760 any before. To be honest, the big game changed to 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.320 me was that that video I saw, and the fact 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.720 that I checked that doctor's credentials and it all checked out. 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:06.600 That was a big game change to me. I want 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.600 to be clear about a few things here. There is 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.680 still a lot we don't know about both COVID nineteen 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:17.159 and the vaccines intended to prevent it. It is easy 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.480 to see how people fall down the rabbit hole like 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:24.320 John did and wind up scared or skeptical, But there 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.880 is also a lot that we do know. These vaccines 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:32.399 have been tested thoroughly and appear safe. That information can 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.200 just sometimes be hard to find. John says the newness 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.680 of it all made him a bit skittish. The doctor 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:42.800 had said that he identified an issue with it, but 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:46.760 and he works in this field. But they chose they 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.800 were They were so far into the process with the 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.160 with making the vaccine. He said that they just continued 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.160 to go along with it. When John did his homework, 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.800 he told me he found both good and bad things 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:04.840 about this misinformation spreading researcher. I felt even if half 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.879 of his concerns were correct, it was enough to worry about. 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.000 John told me he recognized the limits of what he 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.199 could learn by simply googling, so he tried to get 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.240 the fire department to host some kind of information session 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:21.639 about the vaccines. He also consulted with the fire department doctor. 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.560 She too, told him she was skeptical about the vaccine. 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:30.960 She says she was opting out because she doesn't trust 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:35.679 an RNA type vaccine vaccination because it's there's a lot 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:38.080 of unknowns to an RNA type vaccination. They've been working 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:39.640 on if he is, but there's a lot of unknowns. 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:45.000 At the end of the day, though, it seems like 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.520 the biggest issue is that John just couldn't bring himself 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:52.520 to trust the people meant to calm his doubts the vaccine. 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.280 The president, he means, Donald Trump here swear it was 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:00.159 going to be in by a certain time. Every One 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.399 said it will never be ready by that never ready, 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:05.080 and this is going on and on and on. It's 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:06.720 gonna be ready by this time. It's gonna be ready 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:09.000 by this time. It will never be ready. Boom, it 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.280 was ready by the time. These are medical professionals that 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.879 you're supposed to trust, but they can't even get on 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:18.920 the same page. So why should I believe them about 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:23.240 an RNA virus? The tricky thing about vaccines is that 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:27.199 they require public trust in order to work in an 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.040 environment in which the facts keep changing. What version of 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:35.280 them do you even believe? At the start of the pandemic, 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:39.280 public health officials in the US went on record thing 0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:44.440 masks were not necessary. While face masks are currently required 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:46.760 in some parts of China to prevent the spread of 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:49.960 the deadly coronavirus here in the US, the Centers for 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:54.040 Disease Control is not yet recommending them for the public. Then, 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.280 more study of the virus revealed masks were in fact 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:02.960 critical instruments and slowing its spread. Doubt about masks naturally followed, 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:07.560 so did protests in the US. None of this was 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:11.440 helped by a president who promoted claims not backed by science. 0:25:12.480 --> 0:25:16.399 Former President Trump suggested the possibility of ingesting bleach to 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:20.040 combat the virus. He also promoted the wonders of a 0:25:20.080 --> 0:25:24.920 drug called hydroxy chloroquine to treat COVID without any credible 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:28.800 evidence to back it up. Worse yet was the lack 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:32.440 of agreement between the White House and public health figureheads 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:36.200 such as Anthony Fauci, the most senior expert on infectious 0:25:36.240 --> 0:25:39.920 diseases in the country. Like John said, who do you 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:43.240 trust when the people you are supposed to trust can't 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:53.960 agree with each other. Heidi Larson studies mistrust of vaccines. 0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:57.800 She's the founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the 0:25:57.880 --> 0:26:02.679 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It's a nonprofit 0:26:02.760 --> 0:26:05.800 that looks at how rumors about vaccines spread and why 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:12.480 a time like COVID is really full of rumoring. For 0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:16.560 a good reason actually, because even the scientists are learning 0:26:16.640 --> 0:26:20.000 every day, and if you look at the formal definition 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:24.879 of a rumor, it's a piece of yet unverified information, 0:26:25.560 --> 0:26:29.040 so it has the potential to actually be true or 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:33.280 come true, but it also it I sometimes say rumors 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:36.640 have a bad reputation because we always assume they're bad, 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:40.320 but but actually people are trying to figure out based 0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:43.840 on bits and pieces of information, what's the story? So 0:26:44.040 --> 0:26:48.320 I think they've particularly thrived in the context of COVID 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:51.920 more than any other scientists or public health expert I 0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:56.720 interviewed for this podcast Heigh he preaches empathy an understanding 0:26:56.760 --> 0:27:00.119 of people who are skeptical of vaccines. She doesn't like 0:27:00.280 --> 0:27:04.920 the phrase anti vaxer. She says it's too polarizing, too 0:27:05.160 --> 0:27:08.639 ignorant of the broad spectrum of opinions people have on 0:27:08.760 --> 0:27:12.560 this subject. I think one of the problems with the 0:27:12.680 --> 0:27:15.000 framing of the pro and the antie is that it 0:27:15.359 --> 0:27:20.920 kind of pushes out this middle group that are undecided 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:26.240 but there are still open and I think if there 0:27:26.560 --> 0:27:31.000 if they're not getting a reasonable answer, or even feeling 0:27:31.200 --> 0:27:35.040 like they're judged or as some say, demonized for just 0:27:35.200 --> 0:27:39.960 asking questions, it hardens them and they're more vulnerable to 0:27:40.080 --> 0:27:43.040 some of the more extreme views. We've taken a cue 0:27:43.200 --> 0:27:46.720 from Heidi here. You'll notice that we don't use the 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:51.119 term anti vax are very often in this series. Sometimes 0:27:51.680 --> 0:27:54.280 the rumor is not really about the rumor. It's about 0:27:54.320 --> 0:27:58.480 a lot of distrust, and people are because of their 0:27:59.359 --> 0:28:03.960 distrust the system, they make assumptions. Their default is distrust. 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:07.200 If people trust the system. They're not out there looking 0:28:07.359 --> 0:28:10.520 for rumors. But if you don't trust the system, you 0:28:10.560 --> 0:28:24.600