From having friends and family across the world in multiple countries I am seeing one particular fear preventing many from getting vaccines. In the Philippines for example my fiancée has family and they are afraid of vaccines there because they read online , and I see articles as well, stating that the vaccines there like sinovac was approved by WHO for developing countries. So a fear has arose that these poor countries are getting worse vaccines then America and they refuse to get them wanting American vaccines. I guess there are even supposed black market American vaccines brought there. The fear is so great that it seems even the President in the last day or so in the Philippines have stated they will be begin arresting anyone not getting vaccinated.
They have the same fears that we saw in USA about vaccine safety except they have added this layer of being test dummies for lesser known vaccines that first world countries won’t use themselves.
I sent my fiancée links to various sites that specifically mention sinovac to send to her family or translate it since they don’t speak English or know how to read it. I don’t know if it’s a urban legend that has developed or not but her family stated it even goes as bad that people are leaving their jobs snd homes and fleeing to more remote islands to live off the land and in the process several have died because of being out there when the recent storms hit and so on.
Was wondering if anyone knew of any good info that can perhaps dismantle this secondary fear of their vaccines versus ours?
This is a great question and a real issue. Here in Mexico there have been some scandals involving giving people the Chinese or Russian vaccines and telling them it was Pfizer.
I think one thing you could look into is the fact that if there were these notably different negative side effects, like if it was true people were dying from these other vaccines, the anti-vax people would have publicized the reports. But it sure sounds to me that all the people dying and having long-term health issues are because of contracting COVID not being vaccinated.
I hear a lot of people worrying about these hypothetical side effects that are going to hypothetically show up years from now, but as I understand it, that’s not scientifically rational. The active elements of the vaccine are out of your system relatively quickly and any reaction you have to them is going to be pretty immediate. We have watched a good portion of the world, millions of people, receive vaccines from all different manufacturers and the time period for observing negative side effects has elapsed over and over again and there simply is not data to support the fear that there will be all these unknown safety issues. Arguing that the vaccines “haven’t been well-tested” or populations are being used as guinea pigs is ignorant. The non-American or non-European vaccines have been developed based on the same research and scientific knowledge, and there has been a ton of information sharing that is not usually typical of drug companies and proprietary knowledge. It’s not like each new vaccine was created in a vacuum from scratch based on trial and error. What was learned with each vaccine developed has been applied by others.
Another thing to consider is that some of the newer vaccines that aren’t even approved for use in the US are probably more effective against some of the more dangerous variants.
This is a good article about Sinovac and Sinopharm that might help you out.
The short version is that these vaccines might not be as effective or provide as long-lasting protection as US and European ones, but there are far fewer reported side effects. So no one should be afraid the vaccines themselves will hurt them. They just might still get COVID, though protection rates against serious illness seem to be pretty good. If that is the vaccine available, it is better than being unvaccinated.