I don’t know anything about Hinduism, and I know little about Islam, but does receiving a vaccine really constitute “eating” something? In Judaism, it expressly doesn’t. In fact, taking a medication orally, isn’t considered “eating” it for the purposes of keeping kosher. If a doctor says I need a medication, and it contains gelatin, or something derived from shellfish, I can still take it.
OTC supplements I decide on my own to take are more questionable, but at any rate, a vaccine isn’t taken orally. As far as I know, the objection to consuming blood is not an issue during a transfusion, not because a doctor has prescribed it, but because it isn’t being consumed as a food.
It’s never mattered in Judaism that vaccines are cultured in horse or simian tissue, or even that some cultures can be traced back to human tissue, for that matter.
But that’s different from whether it matters to Jewish individuals. If they hear the vaccine was made from pig cells how many will refer to the rabbinic discussion and conclusions? Honest question. I bet it has a lot to do with education and/or income levels whether you get worried about this sort of thing.
Interesting; I may have misunderstood this issue. I thought it was that the preservation of human life trumped Kosher rules, not that they didn’t apply to medication.
If we’re heading off down this little rabbit hole, I’ll briefly throw in an anecdote: I am currently looking at a 1997 handwritten document from the consultant pharmacist to the London and Manchester Beth Din, which I obtained when I was Head of Regulatory Affairs for a small pharma company. It says (in part) concerning ingredients derived from pig:
I am pleased to be able to inform you that the products highlighted can be considered as Kosher even though they contain problematic ingredients such as gelatin…Gelatin and stearates are present in products that are non edible in the normal sense - ie tasteless
Well, no I think she’s wrong. Kosher laws apply to anything you consume. Gel caps pass muster because they are tasteless, not because they’re medicine. Reading another rabbi’s opinion, products made from hooves or shells aren’t considered made from food. He talks of “leniancy” in varying cases. Not sure how authoritative he is.
I was a non-traditional student in college. Because my freshman year was more than five years after my high school graduation, and because my high school curriculum was not designed for the college bound, in order to take general chemistry I had to take a course called “Chemistry for Healthcare Professionals” as a prerequisite.
The course was largely populated with students in the registered and licensed practical nurse programs. My experience with these students in that environment was that academic rigor was neither selected for nor required to graduate. In fact, the second most common question other students asked me once I got to general chemistry was “Why’d you have to take Bonehead Chemistry?”
So when people tell me that 50% of nursing home employees refuse the vaccine I say “meh”. Nursing homes have a lot of employees running the gamut from custodians to physicians, and there are not a lot of data about which ones are in the 50% who refuse.
It’s tempting to look at the refusers and think it’s a lack of education or too much time on conspiracy sites that leads to this. But there are some very valid reasons for minority populations (in the U.S., at least) to distrust doctors and the medical system in general. Beyond the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, many of them have first-hand experience with receiving substandard medical care because of their color.
It’s a real problem, and the approach to people in this camp needs to be completely different than the approach for people who fell down the anti-vaxxer woo hole.
The UK newspapers full of COVID stories. Everytime a report comes out, they look for a sensational angle.
This report about the Indian community has sparked a lot of press interest. But it seems to be based on three surveys with quite small sample sizes, which makes me wonder how representative it is of a community that is quite diverse.
They are calling for a public health campaign and funding.
Researchers have been working on two projects with the University of Oxford: The British Indian Census; a seminal piece of work for the British Indian community, and Pulse & Policy; short, topical surveys designed to poll the community on timely and pressing issues.
This new COVID-19 report is a culmination of all COVID-19 related data from these projects, findings include:
Only 56% of British Indians would take a COVID-19 vaccine when offered, which is significantly lower than the national average of 79%.
Women are significantly less likely than men to take a vaccine with 52% of women willing to take the vaccine, compared with 63% of men.
19% of British Indians feel that other people should have priority in receiving a vaccine, specifically those who are vulnerable and those in low- and middle-income countries.
75% of British Indians face barriers in accessing mental healthcare, and men in particular have overwhelming concerns of suicide.
The research indicates that of the 44% who were either unsure or would decline the vaccine, the reasons for this stem from people feeling they are not informed enough about the vaccines, while a significant proportion feel that other people deserve to receive a vaccine ahead of them.
The COVID-19 report team are now calling for an urgent public health campaign and funding.
I can’t see a problem before there is enough vaccine for everyone in the world who wants it, and a little more beyond that. It’s possible herd immunity will then be strong enough that COVID will have become a rare disease. If not, physicians will start advising their patients, at routine visits, how important it is to be vaccinated. If that still doesn’t do it, an advertising campaign could be tried, but I doubt it will make the difference.
A public campaign, now, to get people to vaccinate, when the vaccine isn’t freely available, would be wildly mistimed.
If someone says they won’t use a vaccine, in short supply, that could have, indirectly, gone to someone in an impoverished country, I respect that. I’m not doing it, but I respect it.
P.S. to last post.: I think that we should value the lives of our friends and, especially, family, at least a bit more than strangers. So I advise everyone to take the vaccine when offered, rather than waiting for everyone less fortunate than they are to have been freely vaccinated. However, even though I mildly disagree, I still respect those who want to wait for such moral reasons.
When I first had to make personal decisions about getting a yearly flu vaccine, I did not get one for several years, mainly in my 20s. My reasoning was two-fold (both folds wrong): first, I had never had a diagnosis of the flu, and never had anything that resembled the illness people talked about, as far as feeling exhausted, being in danger of catching pneumonia, and so forth, even though I had had some pretty bad colds that lingered; but second, I thought I was somehow leaving the vaccines for people who might need it more.
I guess I remembered vaccine-rationing from my childhood, when there a rationing program for the swine flue shot, and that there had been ration programs other times as well.
Someone got it through my head, finally, that if a doctor was offering me the vaccine, either it wasn’t being rationed, or I was in a group that was supposed to receive it.
Also, that I could have a mild, or, more rare but still possible, asymptomatic case, and still pass it on to other people who could become very ill.
Those things are not intuitive for everyone. And with as much as has been in the news about vaccine-rationing, and also about other people not using certain kinds of PPE, but leaving then for healthcare workers, who need them more, I’m not surprised there are people refusing the vaccine so others can have it.
Looks like British Asian celebrities have responded with a video.
The video was co-ordinated by Citizen Khan creator Adil Ray, who said he wanted to dispel vaccination myths for those from ethnic minority communities. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and former Conservative Party Chairman Baroness Warsi are among the others taking part.
There is one thing that vaccine refusers have in common and that is a deep suspicion of the government and its motives.
This unites minorities that have seem themselves as unfairly targetted by immigration policies all the way to conspiracy theorists that imagine vaccination is simply a ruse for Bill Gates to take over their bodies and minds by injecting everyone with his micro-chips to health obsessed parents taken in by anti-vaxxer memes.
How wide and deep this section of the population is, and how firmly they hold their beliefs is very difficult to know. I don’t think a few small sample, snapshot surveys are going to reveal much. Public opinion shifts very easily and the national programme of vaccination is very inspiring. It was very different when the news of the COVID pandemic first broke a year ago. We know much more now and the vaccine represents hope that we can return to something like an normal life than some bizarre plot.
It will be some months before everyone who wants the vaccine has it. I guess that is when the issue of vaccine refusal may become more of a concern.
Vaccine passports are being discussed in the Europe as a potential answer to the travel bans that are being widely implemented at the moment and the curfews are really getting to people with rioting in The Netherlands.
Show me your vaccine ID!
I had a visitor from France a few days ago and they needed a negative COVID test to get into the UK. Restricting peoples rights according to their vaccine status is beginning to happen. That, I guess, deserves another thread.
For now they are imposing travel bans, closing borders and imposing curfews and vaccines are in short supply. But looking for a way out to save the businesses dependent on the summer tourist economy.
It may help prevent a spring break turning into a super spreader event.
But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
We in the US just started this today: “No fresh negative COVID test? No entry.” A perfectly reasonable system that eventually should be expanded to “No vaccination? No entry.”
As to the folks in various surveys who've said they don't want to get the vaccine now to preserve that dose for somebody else more needful. ...
I bet a hefty fraction of those people are picking the altruistic answer on the quiz when their actual motives are less pure. It’d be very interesting to somehow identify the “No, I insist! After you!” people and consult their social media history to see which attitude they’ve been espousing. Just to give us a reasonable number for the discount to apply to that number in future surveys.
For darn sure in a few months that excuse will wear very, very thin once we’ve got enough vaccine for all comers. At least in the more economically advanced parts of the world. Enough for everybody in, e.g. central Africa, is a decade from now, if then.
Don’t think you can say that about “refusers” of this vaccine. It’s a brand new drug that doesn’t have years of safety under its belt. Being hesitant is entirely normal.
I’d recast that a little less absolutely. How about:
Don’t think you can say that about all “refusers” of this vaccine. It’s a brand new drug that doesn’t have years of safety under its belt. Some people Being somewhat more hesitant is entirely normal.
This vaccine (heck, the whole disease) certainly has far more CTs and politically motivated nonsense circulating around it than does other vaccines or diseases. Much of which is fully rooted in a suspicion of government, whether sincerely held or just recently implanted by professional sources of disinformation.