[SANTÉ] Adverse effects: was it really necessary to vaccinate against Covid?

For many, Covid is already a distant memory or a diagnostic surprise compared to a bad cold. However, among the 200,000 French people who have reported adverse effects of vaccines to pharmacovigilance – often brief, it is true – some attribute to them persistent daily infirmity such as thrombosis, myocarditis or pericarditis sequelae, as well as progressive neuropathies.

We are legitimately concerned by the appearance of a pathology a few hours after drug administration, but the succession of two facts does not necessarily sign a causal link between them, unlike the Chantecler rooster who imagined through his crowing that he was sunrise.

The earthen pot versus the iron pot

Which constitutes a first problem for research into legal liability, especially when a clause of irresponsibility for possible side effects of the vaccine – or more precisely of transfer of the burden of repairing the liability of the laboratory to the States -, has been concluded with manufacturers, especially under the aegis of Madame von der Leyen, whose transparency is not the cardinal virtue.

So for those who are fighting today to have someone responsible for their state recognized, it’s an earthen pot against an iron pot. The National Office for Compensation for Medical Accidents, possible payer of last resort, does not spare the taxpayer’s resources to use all the expertises and counter-expertises in the face of complainants, who are more deprived, even helped by associations.

Benefits/risks?

It is also commonly accepted that the vaccines imposed on us (157 million injections in France) have saved lives. But how much? The World Health Organization estimates that vaccination against Covid made it possible between 2020 and 2023 to avoid a little more than a million deaths in Europe (including 96% of people over 60). Did this ratio of 1/700 justify general vaccination, and especially those of millions of minors who did not risk much? Maybe not, but it’s easier to criticize when you know the ending of the film…

Which poses the second problem of “acceptable” individual collateral damage with regard to the interests of a community. If the 7% of military losses tolerated in maneuvers are only an old urban legend, we know that black road bridges are only considered accident-prone, and then restructured accordingly, after analysis of the number of accidents, injured and dead, and the economic valuation of lives potentially saved. In medical matters, and assuming that the benefits and risks of preventive treatment of a mass of population are perfectly known, what proportion of damage is acceptable? “Morally or politically? ”, that’s the whole question.

We feel that a lot of water will still pass under the bridge before compulsive conspiracy theorists on one side find common ground, and those who find that ministers and administrations have done everything as it should on the other.