Cutting through vaccine misinformation

‘‘We’re winning, vaccine acceptance is surging,’’ says Dr Rawiri Jansen – but it’s an almost neverending battle. Brittney Deguara reports.

Swarms of conspiracy theorists and misinformation peddlers have spit out some creatively dangerous and blatantly incorrect claims against the Covid-19 vaccine.

Since May, Stuff’s The Whole Truth: Covid-19 Vaccine project has been cutting through that noise to share the facts.

Almost 50 posts, all reviewed by health experts, have tackled everything from the ‘‘patently ridiculous’’ claim there’s a microchip in the vaccine, to evidence showing myocarditis is more common after infection than vaccination.

While experts say the battle against Covid-19 misinformation is being won – ‘‘We’re winning, vaccine acceptance is surging,’’ says Dr Rawiri Jansen – it will prove itself to be a neverending battle.

‘‘It’s always going to be there

. . . there will always be people who will peddle these theories for one reason or another, it’s not going to go away,’’ warns Professor David Murdoch.

People who are immunocompromised absolutely should get the vaccine

In the early days of the vaccine roll-out, questions lingered around whether immunocompromised people should be getting the jab, but the answer is rather simple: yes.

‘‘They’re the most in need of [the] vaccine because they’ve got the least ability to generate a decent immune response,’’ says public health expert Professor Michael Baker from the University of Otago.

In fact, that group will likely be the ones needing a booster soon, if it’s approved.

‘‘They need more vaccine,’’ Baker says.

In health reporter Hannah Martin’s Whole Truth post, she explains that although the vaccine might not work as well in people with compromised immune systems, it is still safe for them to get it.

This is an important point to make because immunocompromised people are more at risk of getting severely ill from Covid-19, so their vaccination is a priority.

Baker thinks concerns over the safety of the vaccine for this group might have stemmed from a simplistic, although inaccurate, point of view – these people are more vulnerable, so the vaccine might hurt them.

There are only about 100 people in New Zealand who can’t get the vaccine

The release of some key figures has put to bed claims large portions of the eligible community can’t get the vaccine due to health reasons.

Data shows fewer than 100 eligible people can’t actually get it due to medical reasons – these are people who have a history of anaphylaxis and those who had severe reactions to the first dose, senior health reporter Rachel Thomas explained in a Whole Truth post. The latter is a small group made up of those who had anaphylaxis immediately after being immunised, or who experienced myocarditis or pericarditis as a direct result of the first dose.

Baker explains these are the only reasons someone 12 and over can’t safely get the vaccine.

‘‘It doesn’t matter if you’ve had a bad reaction to a different vaccine.’’

This figure has only recently been released, further supporting what experts like Baker already intuitively knew.

‘‘Someone has done the math to come up with the number and realise it’s a tiny, tiny number. We’ve always known intuitively it’s very, very rare that would happen. [It’s] good to have a number.’’

Covid-19 more likely to cause myocarditis than the vaccine

After New Zealand reported its first death linked to a rare sideeffect, senior writer Nikki Macdonald did some research into the risk of myocarditis.

The research found myocarditis to be much more common after Covid-19 infections than after vaccination, with most Pfizer vaccine-related cases experiencing a mild and shortlived bout of it. Most cases are reported in young men, and it is estimated to affect less than one in a million people who receive the vaccine.

Dr Rawiri Jansen, a general practitioner and clinical director for a primary healthcare organisation and a panellist for The Whole Truth, says he heard ‘‘a few good doses’’ of this particular piece of misinformation.

The evidence, however, quickly extinguished queries and concerns on the matter. ‘‘It worked out pretty good, I think.’’

He says details in a counterargument like this, supported by scientific evidence, resonates with people, whereas, conspiracies are often shrouded in a ‘‘level of vagueness’’.

‘‘It starts to look a bit dodgy because it doesn’t have reliable sources of valid information.’’

Take great care when interpreting the ‘adverse events’ reported following vaccination

Anyone who gets the jab – or even their families – can jump online and report any adverse events they experience afterwards. But these reports are unverified, meaning they should be taken with a grain of salt.

As senior reporter Torika Tokalau writes, people reporting these events don’t have to be certain the vaccine caused it.

Professor David Murdoch, a clinical microbiologist and infectious diseases expert at the University of Otago, says having the ability to self-report is important, but people are potentially reading these reports and jumping to conclusions without reading all the small print. He didn’t think that too surprising.

Murdoch, another panellist on the project, says it’s hard to know the full extent this kind of data misinterpretation has on the wider vaccine roll-out, but overall, he thinks, many people are ‘‘reassured’’ by the system.

‘‘The impact has come from a small group, and it’s always really difficult to know [its size].’’

These reporting systems are important to the vaccination programme as they can help detect side-effects that are too rare to be identified during clinical trials.

Mild side effects from the vaccine are typically a sign that it’s working as it should

Like all medicines, the Pfizer jab comes with a list of potential mild side-effects.

On the list of commonly reported reactions are sore arms, headaches and fatigue. Others have experienced muscle aches, a general unwell feeling, chills, fever, joint pain or nausea.

Health reporter Hannah Martin explains these mild reactions are actually a good sign as it is your immune system building antibodies to protect you from future, real infections.

Dr Maia Brewerton, a clinical immunologist, allergist and immunopathologist, says it’s really important people understand what side-effects they might experience after the vaccine – in fact, it’s essential for consent.

She ‘‘absolutely’’ encountered patients who were hesitant to get the vaccine, and in situations like this, explains it’s important the side-effects are balanced out by the benefits of the jab.

‘‘For that group of people, when you explained what you meant – it was a sign, often, of their immune system working – they felt a lot more comfortable.’’

Brewerton, who is also the lead clinician at Auckland Hospital’s Department of Clinical Immunology and Allergy and an expert panellist for The Whole Truth, says most of her patients understand they might experience ‘‘normal and expected’’ side-effects, but it comes down to the individual.

‘‘[There’s] definitely been people out there who think they’re having reactions or that think they’ve developed an infection. [It’s] really variable depending on people’s understanding.’’

The speed of the Covid vaccine to market did not compromise the rigour around checking it for safety

Yes, the Pfizer vaccine got to market in record time, but that didn’t mean any corners were cut, nor did it prove it was ‘‘experimental’’ as some claimed online. Rather, the process was just managed more effectively.

I wrote a post for The Whole Truth explaining the phases of the trials overlapped – think of it like a concertina. This means every box was still checked, just some were checked at the same time.

As Murdoch explains: ‘‘They were . . . effectively no more abbreviated than any other trials, [they were] just done more efficiently.’’

He says the whole vaccine ‘‘pipeline’’ was shortened thanks to all the paperwork and bureaucracy being cut out. Manufacturing was also ramped up.

‘‘Rather than waiting for it to all happen in sequence, there was a lot done in parallel.

‘‘It wasn’t that there was any compromise on the kind of outcome.’’

Cutting corners wouldn’t have been allowed by regulatory authorities like Medsafe, Murdoch says.

Although this speedy process appears to have been created to expedite the Covid-19 vaccines, it was already in the works.

‘‘The last few years before the pandemic, there was [this] realisation that we were in a better capacity to push vaccine development through a lot quicker, but also there was [going to] be a need because Covid-type events were likely to happen,’’ Murdoch says.

‘‘It wasn’t like Covid initiated this faster system, it was developing anyway.’’

There is no such thing as a vaccinated person ‘‘shedding’’ the virus

Baker’s immediate reaction to the idea the vaccine can result in someone shedding the virus is simple: ‘‘Impossible’’.

There is absolutely nothing in the vaccine that can give people Covid-19 or cause them to ‘‘shed’’ the virus, and as Cecile Meier writes, ‘‘people who spread false information about vaccination often cherry-pick and misinterpret to induce fear’’.

Some vaccines are created using weakened, inactivated or altered versions of a virus to activate an immune response – like the MMR and rotavirus jabs – but Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine doesn’t do that. It contains no live, dead or deactivated virus nor does it contain instructions on how to make the whole virus.

Baker admits there are some things to do with the immune system that might be debatable, but this is not one of them.

‘‘It’s biologically impossible for any of the vaccines to allow you to shed virus once you’re vaccinated.’’

He thinks this piece of misinformation might be a ‘‘carry over’’ from live virus vaccines used in the past – like the oral polio vaccine.

‘‘This is people making connections which are just not valid. It wouldn’t pass even the most basic validity check. No, it can’t happen,’’ Baker stresses.

The ingredients of the vaccine are simple and do not include a microchip

There are 10 ingredients in the

Pfizer vaccine, and as Tokalau clarifies, none of those includes a microchip.

There is no microchip in the Covid-19 vaccine. And again for clarity – there is no microchip in the Covid-19 vaccine.

Jansen says it is ‘‘discomforting’’ to know people can believe these ‘‘patently ridiculous’’ things.

The Pfizer vaccine consists of the active ingredient messenger RNA (mRNA), four fats, and four salts.

Jansen first heard this conspiracy in March when he started hosting vaccine Q&As with port and border workers and thinks it’s important to ‘‘disarm’’ these conspiracy theorists with the facts.

‘‘Otherwise it’s a contest of research on the internet . . . The concept of research on the internet is not a good place to go.’’

The Whole Truth only tackled this rumour because it had persisted for several months; even the Ministry of Health addressed it.

mRNA vaccines – like Pfizer – have been in development for decades

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines marked a turning point in vaccine development by becoming the first mRNA vaccines to be approved. This doesn’t mean the technology is new – national correspondent Katie Kenny explains this in her Whole Truth post.

The vaccine technology works by entering your body and teaching your cells how to respond to the virus, before being destroyed.

While the word ‘‘mRNA’’ might have been new to the nonscientific community, it wasn’t to those working in this field.

‘‘Just because it’s new to a person, doesn’t mean it’s new to the scientific world,’’ Brewerton says.

She says these vaccines have been worked on for other infectious diseases for decades, and it’s important to use this fact as a base to then build assurances on safety.

‘‘I do think that it is important for people to understand. I wouldn’t be recommending it unless I felt really confident about it.’’