Tony Brasunas

It’s an enormous issue, this so-called “vaccine.” It’s also an obvious place to notice the diverging media worlds that exist today almost like parallel universes. In independent media, you’ll often hear dozens of reasons to be hesitant if not downright suspicious about this rushed billion-dollar pharmaceutical that isn’t FDA approved, uses brand-new technology, and skipped normal phases of safety trials. In the corporate media world, on the other hand, this injection is clearly the best thing since sliced bread and the tiny fringe of weirdos who even question jabbing this miracle cocktail deep into their muscles tomorrow need not be taken seriously.

Let’s dig in.

An Experimental Therapeutic Injection

First, I will be referring to the shots developed so far as “experimental injections.” We could also call them “experimental gene therapy injections” or “experimental chemotherapy.” The word “experimental” is necessary as this product has received only an emergency authorization, isn’t formally approved, and hasn’t undergone normal testing. It fits only the FDA’s description of “investigational” or “experimental.” I don’t find the word “vaccine” to be merited since none of these injections prevents infection or transmission. Thus none of them fits the legal, public health, or common-sense definition of a vaccine. A “vaccine” is something that provides a public health benefit, immunity, rather than just making an individual feel better, and this injection doesn’t even claim to prevent infection or stop transmission. That’s the first and biggest thing here: the corporate media barely mentions that this experimental injection does not stop you from getting the virus. If they actually mentioned this, it would make some of their suggestions around requiring the injection ridiculous. 

Nor does the therapeutic injection contain the virus; rather it uses genetic information to instruct the body’s cells to themselves manufacture virus proteins, and it attempts to reduce symptoms caused by those proteins (not the virus itself). It’s a synthetic new cocktail that is injected into the body — thus bypassing the body’s normal exterior defenses to foreign pathogens — to deliver genetic information to your cells. It has no long term trials, and drugmakers have no liability for death or disease it causes. Imagine a new experimental chemotherapy regimen and you’re in the right ballpark. It’s synthetic, so there will be side effects, we just don’t know what all of them will be yet.

So what’s going to happen?

For the drugmakers it’s a giant roulette wheel with no losing spaces. Their stock is up; they’re all in on seeing how far this goes.