There follows a guest post by Daily Sceptic reader ‘Amanuensis’, as he’s known in the comments section. The author is an ex-academic and senior Government researcher/scientist with experience in the field. In this post, he asks whether there’s such a thing as too many vaccinations. Issues covered include: what constitutes the ‘right level’ of immune response; the effect of vaccinating someone multiple times in a short period; and why those who’ve received two doses of the Covid vaccines aren’t protected against infection.
About 10 days ago I caught Covid.
I was a bit surprised because I’ve already had it – I caught it back in December 2019. (Before anyone yells ‘that’s before Covid came!’, I caught it at a hotel frequented by Air China pilots and cabin-crew and I also note that there was a strange peak in ambulance call-outs for cardiac/respiratory arrest back in Nov/Dec ‘19, as discussed here.) This time I caught it because I had to pop into the office, which is mainly frequented by the double jabbed. And as we all know, the double-jabbed are suffering from negative vaccine efficiency and are thus more likely to catch Covid than anyone else (somewhere between –50%, –100% or even –150%). The only people who don’t seem to know this are politicians…
Anyway, I was rather cross about catching Covid, because it does lead to some inconveniences, including: being locked away in my home-office for several days with only occasional supplies of broth and warm milk from my wife (thanks!), and only being allowed out for daily exercise (I took two days off because I felt ever so slightly rough). Well, one day I decided to drive to Barnard Castle to check my eyesight, but that’s a different story.
Being locked away gives you time to think, so between buying Christmas presents for my children (Covid is bad for your wealth) and trying to keep those callers from BT/Microsoft on the phone for as long as possible, I drifted off to thinking about childhood illnesses and all the vaccinations we take in our youth. (Wasting cold callers’ time is a great game, and every minute that you spend stops them making one phone call to someone vulnerable, who might end up being scammed.)
When I was about 13, I recall standing in a line as one-by-one we were attacked by a nurse with a strange clicking device, the Heaf test, the purpose of which was to drive several needles covered in tuberculin purified protein derivative into your upper arm to test for prior exposure to TB. Those that had a negative reaction would go on to have inoculation with BCG, while those that had a positive reaction would be pulled to one side and mocked by their classmates as being contaminated with the mysterious TB. Beyond the psychological damage from the mocking, it is important to note that those with a positive reaction wouldn’t be given their BCG inoculation because it would have no clinical benefit and would introduce a real risk of rather unpleasant side effects.
The question is, why was this caution necessary? Throughout our lives we get exposed and re-exposed to pathogens all the time and the purpose of vaccination is to give our immune system the signals of an infection without the risks of the disease; it certainly wouldn’t be advantageous if the immune system gave a risk of unpleasant side effects every time it was re-exposed to a pathogen for which it had already built up protective immunity.
It is important to note that the immune system doesn’t simply stop infection on re-exposure to any pathogen, but offers sufficient protection to halt and then clear any infection before the pathogen has a chance to reproduce to the point where it can cause disease – this is generally indistinguishable from ‘stops infection’, but it is an important nuance. For example, there is evidence that continuous exposure to pathogens to which we already have immunity substantially reduces our risks of some diseases (e.g., shingles).
Can You Have Too Many Vaccinations?Read More