Safe Vaccines Unsafe Media
The self-described “small group” named “Global Research” (Canada) has published online a too common sensationalist article warning people of the “high rate” of deaths and injuries from COVID 19 vaccines. They focus on the European Union reports and (oddly) don’t take into account the leading nation of the United States right across the border. Well, the figures between the two don’t vary by much but one has to wonder about Canadian (pro socialist) nationalist chauvinism. (Not really jingoism as it’s defined.)
But: It’s important to point out that Global Research does not actually support the “too dangerous” viewpoint regarding the several vaccines. In fact they just report the statistics they say are under reported without taking a position. Maybe they think that failing to report that the percentages of people affected are tiny is “objective” but it’s not. They do provide those already inclined to criticize the vaccines as too dangerous another erroneous data point.
But the total population of Europe (the most widely accepted figure today) is ~ 750 million people. That’s more than double the U.S. population so it may be more indicative. And the article claims 15,472 people in Europe have died after being vaccinated and 1.5 million have been adversely affected — but only 50% seriously. Such headlines, captions and “announcements” by the Press are actually typical exaggeration to make a false argument against vaccination. The vaccinations being administered here and in Europe are 99.98% safe.
For that matter the actual statistical danger of this virus and its mutations don’t even begin to compare in magnitude with the Great Plague of the 1300s. Europeans died at horrific rates, losing an estimated 50% of the population. What if COVID 19 and its variants was to suddenly start killing half the people you know? And by the way it should not go unnoticed that eventually a vaccine was developed that lead to the virtual annihilation of the plague bacteria. No one in the 1300s would have cared if the cure killed FIVE percent of those who got the vaccine.
Even if 1% of those vaccinated suffered adverse effects, that would still mean the vaccines being used in Europe and the U.S. are 99% safe. In fact they are more than that safe. How safe do we expect to be? Typically in Europe and the U.S. any medication or medical procedure must pass the more than 99% safe mark. And of course we often expect better so that the odds of any medication or medical procedure doing us harm have to be nearly zero.
I can only speak for journalism and journalistic standards here in the U.S. I believe the polls are saying the American people have lost all their trust in the Press (whether digital broadcast or conventional newspapers and magazine formats). And of course word of mouth has it that publishers and broadcasters are worried most over their nose-diving profit margins. Evidently, publishers and broadcasters think so little of us they think we’ll accept anything they publish and they are clearly right because we continue to trust them when we let our guard down. Don’t let your guard down.
I’m talking about an overall “tendency” on the part of the once-objective news media to pick one political party’s platform and push it beyond the bounds of honesty and fairness.
When, as in the example here, the Press uses both a lie of omission (leaving out the smallness of the threat) and a lie of exaggeration (closely linked by omitting the whole story so there’s no real perspective offered) you set up the readers to believe something that’s not true. This in turn leads normally honest people to make “confirming” statements of their own on social media like Facebook and Twitter.
As you can see, it’s not simple. We have organizations like Global Research, we have the Press here and abroad and we have people with their own preconceptions looking to further their (sometimes erroneous) beliefs.
When someone provides a set of skewed data (political parties, politicized Press) which encourages people to put forth mistaken and misleading arguments which can do actual harm (keeping people away from vaccination), then you have a dishonest cohort that can be and should be driven out of our society for the good of our society.