Prophecy Today has invited Dr Ruth Ferguson, a retired doctor, to write an article on the Covid pandemic from a pro-vaccine stance. In particular, she responds to Dr Alistair Montgomery’s article of several weeks ago, and seeks to show that by and large, the vaccines are safe, and are the best medical means available out of the Covid pandemic.
An unknown virus
Two hundred years ago, Edward Jenner did ground-breaking work with smallpox. He noticed that farm workers exposed to cowpox seemed to be resistant to infection with the much more serious smallpox. His pioneering experiments led to the eradication of smallpox and to a whole new medical tool at our disposal – that of vaccination. Scientific knowledge continues to progress today.
Uncertainty at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic provided the perfect breeding ground for peddlers of doubt and lies. This was a new virus whose behaviour was largely unknown to scientists. There were inevitably huge gaps in our data banks. However, as time progressed, knowledge increased rapidly, and we were able to streamline advice and prevention based on that knowledge.
Vaccinating children
So, to address the claims made by Dr Montgomery in his article:
1) That there are no health benefits to children receiving the vaccine and that the risk of death is four times that of catching the disease. The health benefits are
a) for the ongoing and uninterrupted education of the 12-15 age group. School children approaching important exams suffered badly under lockdowns and the many occasions when a class member was found to be Covid positive. For many, their mental health took a battering.
b) for the community. A high level of vaccination in the population – 80% – is needed to protect the elderly and the vulnerable.1
To state that the risk of death from taking the vaccine is four times that of catching the disease is simply not true. Children of that age group respond to the vaccine in the same way that adults do. Dr Montgomery’s death statistics come from an American magazine ‘The Defender’ which published the adverse reactions to the vaccines. This is equivalent to the UK’s Yellow Card system where anyone can report a symptom which they think may be related to a medicine.
Causal relationships?
In most cases there is not necessarily a causal relationship between the medicine and the symptom. Some of the examples cited by the above magazine were: two teenage boys had committed suicide within weeks of having the jab; another boy had been playing football and died suddenly from a heart arrythmia.2 These three deaths were attributed to the Covid vaccine, but this was a false assumption.
In most cases there is not necessarily a causal relationship between the medicine and the symptom.
Dr Montgomery later claims that the registered vaccine deaths exceed all other vaccine deaths for the last 30 years and that the damage to health is enormous. This statement is unsubstantiated and misleading; it has been drawn from the Yellow Card figures which, in their raw state as already explained, are not intended to show a causal relationship between the events.
Covid death figures
I would add here that the Public Health (PHE) figures are less reliable as a measure of deaths from COVID-19 (and therefore the performance of the vaccine) than the Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures. The latter are based on actual death certificates where COVID is known to have been an important factor.3
Interestingly, a study compared the actual deaths following a positive Covid test as reported by PHE – looking at each deceased person’s records (even if they didn’t die in hospital) – with the ONS figures (the actual death certificate numbers of deaths from COVID-19).4 They agreed to 91% accuracy! This shows that the daily figures giving the numbers who died within 28 days of a positive Covid test are pretty accurate.
Additional responses
2) That Covid poses no serious threat to the ‘working well’ population. With the emergence of the Delta strain, we are seeing more serious disease in unvaccinated younger people. Recent (admittedly unverified) figures from Birmingham5 show that in the months May – August 2021, there had been 530 hospital admissions, all infected with COVID-19. 51 of the 67 admitted to ICU were unvaccinated, and of those, 34 were under 65 and 10 under 35.
3) That the vaccine carries short and long-term adverse health effects. Compared with catching the disease, these are negligible. Blood clotting: this is more likely with Covid than with the vaccine6 (risk 4 in 1 million).7 Vaccination resulted in the prevention of 95,200 deaths and 82,100 hospitalisations in the first 6 months of 2021 (ONS). Only 0.5% of COVID-19 deaths in the first 6 months of the year followed ‘breakthrough infections’ in fully vaccinated people. Of the 640 deaths in people who had received two doses of vaccine, many were infected before they had received both jabs or had tested positive for COVID-19 within 14 days of their second dose. The ONS figures showed that 38,964 people who died were completely unvaccinated. 11,677 deaths were in the partially vaccinated (only one dose). The vaccine saves lives.
There is much more misinformation out there, for example that Covid vaccines cause infertility, miscarriages and are not safe to be taken in pregnancy. All of these are baseless.
4) Alternative treatments for COVID-19: There are six drugs being tested under the Principle trial at Oxford University at the moment. It is hoped that suitable treatment will be found for mild cases of the disease for people to take at home. The only one which has proved useful is Budesonide – an inhaler used for asthma. It is now prescribable by GPs for this purpose. Ivermectin has not shown any promise as a useful drug against COVID-19 in this trial.
5) That the PCR test is not fit for purpose. This is another piece of misinformation.8
There is much more misinformation out there, for example that Covid vaccines cause infertility, miscarriages and are not safe to be taken in pregnancy. All of these are baseless.9
Trusting the science
Last year, the virus was contained by lockdowns and other restrictions. Not until December 2020 when the vaccine rollout started did we begin to see a change in the miserable picture of record numbers of excess deaths and hospital admissions. The improvement continued until, in June of this year, our Government took the bold step of relying on vaccination entirely and removing all restrictions in England. Since then there has been a new sense of freedom, hope and optimism. Schools are back, businesses are up and running again. Thank God for his mercy and grace in our time of need!
In these days when opinions are polarising, the decision to take the vaccine or not may be a difficult one. There is a plethora of information and even more misinformation on the issue. The website Fullfact.org/health/vaccines has 13 pages on the subject and each page deals with ten items with their own subsections. I recommend this site. They do excellent work teasing out the origin of the misinformation and putting out the facts.
Natural immunity from catching the disease is not as strong as that from vaccination, which is why those who have had Covid are being advised to have the vaccine.
Another perspective to take into consideration is that of the immunity level in the community. As has already been said, we need 80% of our community to be vaccinated to protect all of us. And by the way, natural immunity from catching the disease is not as strong as that from vaccination, which is why those who have had Covid are being advised to have the vaccine.10
Trusting the Lord
It boils down to who you can trust. For Christians, our first port of call in any decision should be the Lord himself. Why would anyone choose to take advice from social media when they can enquire of the living God? He is the source of all truth.
The body of Christ is being torn apart by this issue. Is this glorifying to God? There are much bigger battles ahead of us and we will need each other. My appeal to readers is therefore to ask God for wisdom (James 1:5) as you examine the facts, and I pray that you will come to a place of peace in line with his truth.
Dr Ruth Ferguson (MB ChB, BMed Biol - Immunology)
Endnotes
1 'Pushing back – Tackling the anti-vax movement', by Seren Boyd
2 The most likely explanation for the sudden death of the young man was either hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or a congenital condition. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle - a rare sequel to Covid vaccination. Whether scarring of the heart results from it and has any effect on the heart rhythm has yet to be established by proper investigation. Read here.
3 'Deaths from Covid-19. How they are counted and what do they show?' The King’s Fund. 23 April 2021.
4 ‘Behind the headlines: counting COVID-19 deaths’. UKhsa.blog.gov.uk
5 Private email sent to me by a Christian friend who works for Birmingham City Council and who has access to such information.
6 See University of Oxford News and Events 15 April 2021 report, ‘Risk of rare blood clotting higher for COVID-19 than for vaccines’.
7 Gov.Uk Press release. MHRA issues new advice concluding a possible link between COVID-19 Vacine AtraZeneca and extremely rare, unlikely to occur blood clots.
8 'The CDC has not said PCR tests don’t work' fullfact.org
9 Covid: Claims vaccinations harm fertility unfounded. Rachel Schraer. BBC Reality Check. 13 February 2021
Covid-19: No evidence that vaccines can affect fertility, says new guidance. BMJ 2021 19 Feb.
Covid vaccine: Fertility and miscarriage claims fact checked. Rachel Schraer. BBC News 11 August 2021
10 British Society of Immunology: ‘Covid-19 Immunity: Natural infection compared to vaccination’. June 2021. (Editor: See also).