As a retired physician, I can only wonder how RFK, Jr. has had any training in health care and medical science that would qualify him for HEW Secretary. mRNA vaccines are regularly updated by the manufacturers to provide a degree of immunity to whatever COVID-19 viral strains are immanent. I was a test subject back in 2020 when COVID was first recognized, and mRNA vaccines had just been developed. Other than a sore arm for a few days, I had no side effects. And I've since had regular boosters to cover newly recognized strains. Again, with no side effects. The link (from Yale Medicine) has information regarding the efficacy of the various current mRNA vaccines.
Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different?
Let's not forget that the White House Rose Garden back in 2020 became a superspreader zone, since Pres. Trump had little knowledge or concern of how serious COVID-19 could be. And he himself got quite sick and was hospitalized at Walter Reed. He recovered after 3 days, but his degree of illness was withheld from news sources. The NYT article is interesting (though it may be behind a pay wall.)
...but it is still quite possible that he was someone who was impacted negatively by it.
Obviously shooting up the place is an unacceptable reaction to it, but now that we can have more honest discussions about it without risk of ending up getting banned:
Disclosure: Source CDC - aggregated by Claude (anthropic)
Serious Adverse Events (Rare)
| Side Effect | Rate per Million Doses | Estimated Total Cases (US) | Severity | Recovery Rate |
|---|
| Anaphylaxis | 5 per million | ~3,350 cases | Severe but treatable | Near 100% with prompt treatment |
| Myocarditis | 40 per million* | ~26,800 cases | Mild to moderate | 80% fully recovered |
| Pericarditis | 40 per million* | ~26,800 cases | Mild to moderate | 80% fully recovered |
| TTS (J&J only) | 40 per million J&J doses | ~600-800 cases total | Severe | Variable |
| Guillain-Barré Syndrome | 2 per million | ~1,340 cases | Moderate to severe | Variable |
*Higher rates in young males (16-30 years) after 2nd mRNA dose
Common Side Effects (Not Serious)
| Side Effect | Percentage of Recipients | Estimated Cases (US) | Severity |
|---|
| Pain at injection site | 80-90% | ~180-200 million | Mild |
| Fatigue | 60-70% | ~135-157 million | Mild to moderate |
| Headache | 50-60% | ~112-135 million | Mild to moderate |
| Muscle pain | 40-50% | ~90-112 million | Mild |
| Fever | 15-20% | ~34-45 million | Mild to moderate |
| Chills | 30-40% | ~67-90 million | Mild |
If we ignore the "common - not serious" stuff which we all pretty much had and just focus on the serious stuff and just focus on the serious stuff, there's still some people who were negatively impacted by it. (and notice I'm not using VAERS as a source, I've actually been highly critical of using that source when anti-vaxxers try to leverage it)
By the more conservative CDC estimates, there are 50-100K people out there who had a bad experience with it.
And society "did them dirty" when they tried to get help if we're being honest.
A person did what society (and the government) told them was "the right thing to do for the rest of society", they unfortunate enough to have a bad reaction to it, and when they try to get some sort of help/reconciliation for that situation, they're either
- told "sorry, but you signed the waiver"
- told "it's all in your head, you're just paranoid from what you read online"
- try to share your story in a support group online, and get flagged and banned
or
- flat out told by doctors "nah, it can't be from that, this is the safest vaccine in the history of safety and vaccines, go home and don't waste our time"
It's 2025 and nobody really takes the topic that seriously anymore, but I think memories are short term on this, and people are forgetting just how crazy things were back in 2020-2021.
While I never had any bad experiences with the Pfizer doses (I had 3 of them, bailed on the boosters after that due to getting a covid case 3 weeks after dose 3, and wasn't convinced they still worked all that well so decided "what's the point?"), I do know a few people who had heart issues after doses 2 and beyond, and they certainly weren't "right wing nutters" or "conspiracy theorists" by any stretch of the imagination, and had to go to multiple doctors before someone would take them seriously.
In one case, a person who was an avid runner in their 30's with impeccable results at their physicals prior, and is still stuck dealing with sporadic chest pains and still takes blood pressure medication.
Obviously I can't say definitively that it was the vaccine that caused it, I'm not a doctor...but if a person in their 30's with pristine numbers, 155lbs, a stellar diet, and a distance runner starts having episodes where their blood pressure goes north of 160/90, and their resting heart rate is 105bpm (after years of never having those problems), that should at least be worth looking into.
Instead, when they went to both Cleveland Clinic and UH, it was chalked up to anxiety, and they were basically condescended to and chastised for "wasting our time".
