Covid-19 has impacted the entire world and many people are excited at the prospect of a vaccination in helping life return back to normal. While it is possible that a vaccination may help life return to normal, there are other aspects that we believe should not be overlooked in our rush to control Mother Nature. Regardless of how much a person feels that the vaccines will be helpful, we strongly believe that, due to the following reasons, the Covid-19 vaccine should not be required by government, businesses, or other institutions.
1. We Do Not Know the Long-Term Effects
The FDA and other officials openly state that they have not yet studied the long-term effects of the vaccinations. In other words, we simply do not know what effects, if any, these vaccinations will have in the long run.
Is this a cause for concern though? Just because we do not know if the vaccination will, for example, sterilize you or your children (as many are currently concerned about), does that mean that it will? To be sure, lack of knowledge does not equate to there being a long-term effect, but, to be equally sure, lack of knowledge also does not equate to the vaccine being safe in the long run.
To understand how medicine and drug approvals usually work, the FDA takes years to study the effects of medication, vaccines, etc. as they have learned, from many unfortunate experiences, that some of the most dangerous side effects cannot be detected in the first few years of a drug’s use.
With the testing done so far, we know that most people don’t immediately drop over dead when they take the vaccine. That is a good thing. We don’t know yet, though, if the Covid-19 vaccination causes:
· Mania, seizures, and death, as did Quaalude, which was on the market for 23 years but is now a Schedule 1 Controlled Drug (like heroin);
· Birth defects and cancer, as did Diethylstibestrol, a drug on the market for 31 years and which was recommended by the manufacturer to be taken in all pregnancies;
· Serious toxicity to the heart and death, as did Darvon & Darvocet, a drug on the market for 55 years; or
· Suicidal tendencies and birth defects, as did Accutane, a drug on the market for 27 years and meant to treat acne.
Of course, some say that these were years ago, and that the FDA and science has significantly improved. Yet, in 2017, a prominent news source (NBC News) highlighted that:
“Almost one-third of new drugs approved by U.S. regulators over a decade ended up years later with warnings about unexpected, sometimes life-threatening side effects or complications, a new analysis found.” https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/new-drugs-found-cause-side-effects-years-after-approval-n757526
Currently, there are at least 48 vaccines being tested in humans, with another 164 being studied in a laboratory. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/there-are-many-different-covid-vaccines-here-s-how-they-work/ar-BB1b5EKG?fbclid=IwAR18PD4ApHD-uFbKN7KRdgsmxOMXXl_-aKJNu4bAkzVSkPwxy_b7xVsGDWM If the 1/3 number holds steady for FDA approved drugs, that would mean that 16 of the vaccines being tested and 54 of the others being studied would have significant side effects only discovered years into the future (of course, some of these will have serious side effects now and will never make it that far, but the 1/3 number of serious items detected after approval is still highly concerning. From our perspective, that fraction of drugs with serious issues will be much higher for vaccinations that have not even made it through the normal testing procedure with the FDA).
It is not hard to review the history of medicine to see that the human body is complex enough that science still does not understand everything that takes place when the body encounters a medicine or vaccination.
The ‘science’ involved in determining the safety of a vaccination is not the same ‘science’ as programming a computer. For health related items, most of the ‘science’ is observation based. This means that humans are injected with a vaccination, and then ‘scientists’, ‘researchers’, and others observe over the course of years what happens. There is nothing about 2021 that has changed the reality that we are still, in medicine at least, in the ‘science’ of observing.
So, when it comes time to decide about mandating vaccinations, we firmly believe that no human has the moral right to compel another human to participate in a medical trial. The observations are just beginning, and morality does not grant a free pass to compel another person to participate in a medical trial that could impact their health and well-being for years to come.
2. Some of the Vaccinations Modify Genetics
The methods behind vaccinations is changing from the first vaccinations. Currently, some of the Covid-19 vaccinations actually work to change the way our bodies respond or act. As stated in the MSN article above on the number of vaccinations, the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccinations are “genetic-code” vaccinations.
In other words, these are drugs that modify or alter our genetic make-up. As admitted in the MSN article above, “Vaccines that use genetic material have never been used outside of medical research, but they can be manufactured rapidly.”
What this says to us is that easy manufacturing (to help society return to normal quickly) is worth a widespread trial where we make changes to our genetic code.
To be fair, the vaccinations do not (supposedly) alter DNA, but attempt to manipulate RNA some. Depending on the semantics involved, some will argue that these do not manipulate genetics, others will argue that they do. From our perspective, regardless of how something is labeled, if it is aimed at altering pieces of our genetic code, it is something to be highly concerned about, even if it is not the core pieces of our genetics.
The author of this article is not a ‘scientist’. Despite this, we feel strongly that no person has to be a scientist to understand that modifications to our genetic codes may have repercussions and side effects that may not be perceived for many years into the future, and that perhaps may only be discovered in our children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren.
Think of it this way, if you were presented with a seriously complex computer code used to keep America’s data safe and you were asked to make some changes to some parts of it, would you want to test those changes first, or would you feel comfortable having them role out immediately to all of the computers in use? Why should it be any different for our genetic programming?
Further, what, morally, gives license to any person to compel another to participate in genetic modifications? Do we really believe that we are all-seeing and all-knowing enough to anticipate and guard against all possible effects of modifying genetic code? This is a ‘science’ we are just beginning to explore, and it is not one that we can say we have mastered or fully understand. Many, many more years of observation are still necessary.
We do not believe morality gives a person a right to compel another to have their genetic code modifed, and we do not believe that there is any moral justification to compel another to participate in genetic procedures.
In Utah, U.C.A. §26-45-103 bans an employer from requiring an employee to participate in a genetic test. We believe this is an appropriate law. However, we believe it should go further and include a ban on requiring an employee to participate in a genetic procedure, such as an MRNA vaccination.
If we are opposed to eating genetically modified organisms (GMO’s), why should we be any less opposed to becoming GMO’s ourselves?
3. We Are Asked to Simply ‘Trust’, or Have Faith
Knowing that there are unanswered questions, those who believe in the effectiveness of the vaccine are asking us to trust, or believe, in science. The EU has launched a ‘Believe in Science’ campaign to promote a belief in science.
Faith, though, is an intensely personal choice. As individuals, we do have to make decisions about what is good or bad for us, and we rarely know for sure when making the decision. We fully appreciate that belief is at the heart of what we say and do.
However, just because a person believes a certain medicine is safe does not mean that the person should compel others to believe it as well. Freedom in the modern world has long been predicated on a safeguarding of individual faith and belief. Removing this protection and mandating vaccinations, whether at the government or business level, is a serious affront to one of our foundational liberties that helps to ensure one of our most cherished freedoms.
‘But you may harm others’ people say, ‘so you have to be vaccinated to protect them.’ This is a fear-based premise though. An unvaccinated person also may not harm any others. If a person gets sick, the person may quarantine promptly and not spread the illness to anyone. Or, maybe the person doesn’t quarantine, but still doesn’t spread it to anyone.
Further, this argument ignores that vaccines can also harm people. Vaccines still kill people. Look at the recognized side effects from many vaccinations. Many individuals are seriously harmed by them.
Society would be better off if no one could drink and drive. Society would be better off if we all were kind and shared. Society would be better off if there were no STD’s. Despite this, society does not feel it is proper to completely ban alcohol, to require that we share everything, or to require that individuals practice abstinence until they are married.
In Utah, a study was done on the rate of spread of Covid-19 to individuals who lived in the same home as a person with Covid-19. In those situations, only 12% of individuals contracted Covid-19 when they lived with a person with Covid-19. https://www.ksl.com/article/50014798/university-of-utah-study-odds-of-catching-covid-19-from-someone-at-home-is-12
That number is surprisingly low. If 88% of people who live with someone with Covid-19 did not contract the disease, but nearly 33% of FDA approved drugs are later found to have serious issues with them, is it logical for a person to place their faith in the fact that there may be less harm without a vaccine than with one?
No person has to agree with the above statement, and it can be viewed from a number of angles. The point is simply that when it comes to matters of faith and reason, these are individual matters that need to be deeply respected for our society to continue to operate as it has. Government and employers should not be telling their employees what to believe, or compelling them to participate in a medical procedure that is just beginning to be observed.
The ’science’ of knowing whether a vaccination is safe or not is still the science of observation. If the argument was “we have administered the vaccine for 100 years and have super solid observations, so trust us”, that would be one thing to discuss. However, when the argument is “trust us, we’ve done some cool things in the past and technology is awesome, so we’re super sure that our observations won’t detect any future issues”, it is an entirely different story.
Ironically, the statement ‘believe in science’ contradicts one of science’s central premises, that of challenging, testing, refining, challenging again, etc. Science claims to be powerful because it can explain why things happen and predict how other things will happen. However, science itself is not based in belief. Scientists are supposed to challenge hypotheses, test them, stretch them, see where they do not work, etc.
In other words, if scientists started believing the other scientists, science would cease progressing. Science is about the tangible world, not the intangible world. When science starts asking us to ‘believe’ in something that it has not tested or refined, it is asking us to adopt a new religion. It is no longer science at that point, but a faith-based belief. While people may choose to believe in science as they wish to, there is no moral justification to compel another to also believe.
Simply put, there is no basis for us to put any trust or faith in. There is no historical track record even to really say whether the vaccines are a good idea or not in the long run. Yes, good people have worked round the clock to find solutions, but no level of goodness or good intent can undo the fact that we are still in the world of observations, and the level of observation is simply not enough to be able to defensibly discuss why it is moral to mandate a vaccination. The people deciding whether to mandate these or not have no idea what the observations will yield, and so there is not a sufficient basis in the law, morality, or science to mandate the vaccinations.
4. Rejecting a Health Treatment is a Personal Right
Health is commonly at the intersection of morality. We maintain that the ability to reject a health treatment is a personal right. Please read this carefully, as we are not saying that it is a personal right to receive any medical treatment one desires. The two concepts are different, and operate under different principles (especially since a ‘right’ to receive any medical treatment one desires requires the consent of others who are performing the treatment).
For purposes of this article, we will focus solely on the ability to reject a health treatment. All individuals must form, for themselves, a belief about life and death. Science cannot tell us ‘why’ we exist, or if our life has any purpose, nor has it been able to tell us much about after death.
When sickness enters the equation, it forces people to decide, at some level internally, how they view the purpose of life and the experience of death. Some are terrified to die, feeling that they will never experience anything again. Others don’t fear death, as they believe life will continue. Others are somewhere in between.
When it comes to what health treatments we receive, individuals must be able to live in accordance with their beliefs and reject treatments that do not correlate. Individuals may believe that a drug or vaccine will injure them, they may believe it would impact their spirituality, or they may believe that people are conspiring to intentionally harm them.
Whatever their belief is, you have one too. Your belief, to them, may be just as silly or lacking in substance as you believe their belief is.
Further, medicine has consistently shown the reality of the placebo effect. There is great power that comes to a person when they believe that something will help them. Even if a person, for example, is simply given water in a vaccination, oftentimes the person’s belief that it will help them can cause them to improve or be healed.
We believe the corollary is also true though. If a person believes that something will harm or hurt them, the harm or hurt may follow. Faith has always been, and will always be, a critical part of medicine and healing.
If individuals who strongly believe that they will be harmed are compelled to be vaccinated, they may just end up harmed, just as others can end up healed based on their belief of its ability to heal. When the effects of medicine are so closely tied to what a person feels or believes, it is improper to compel treatment.
If we remove the personal right to refuse treatment, we are opening a door for the government or business owners to require us to submit to whatever is determined ‘healthy’ for us. What if we learn how to modify genes to make us stronger and less prone to sickness? Can an employer require that we modify our genes to save on sick days and to make us more efficient? What if some scientists conclude that people are ‘healthier’ if they do not believe in God? Can we compel people to modify their minds and beliefs to achieve the ‘healthy’ state?
Health is a combination of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual factors. We are still working to understand how all of these interact. As we continue our journey of exploring and observing, we must maintain the freedom for people to refuse treatments they believe violate their faith. Otherwise, we will lose a precious freedom that helps significantly in our search for happiness, and we may, regardless of how well intentioned, inflict serious harm in the process.
5. ‘Freedom’ to Compel Entails a Responsibility to Remedy Damages
Many people claim that businesses have the freedom to choose what requirements their employees must follow and that the government should not interfere in the freedoms of a business to choose what is best for its workforce. Even though many people say this, they do not actually believe that a business really should have unlimited freedom to choose requirements for their employees. Many things are simply too personal in nature and do not concern the business.
For example, it is widely accepted that a business in most situations should not be allowed to refuse to hire based on a variety of protected factors, such as race, religion, sex, etc. In addition, consider the following factors:
· Number of children – Should a woman be fired for having a fourth child?
· Number of siblings – Should a man be fired because he comes from a family of 13 children?
· Whether parents are divorced – Should a person be fired because his/her parents divorce?
· Whether there is an STD – Should a person be fired for having an STD?
· Size of home – Should a person be fired for having a home that is too large or too small?
· Not eating meat – Should a person be fired for refusing to eat meat?
In all of these situations, there are one or two scenarios where it might make sense or be defensible to fire a person. However, in nearly all other business and employment scenarios, these factors simply do not matter.
While we do not advocate for ‘right’s in all of the above situations, and the general morals of society will often stop people from taking actions similar to those above, we do recognize the serious, fundamental nature of the personal right to refuse medical treatment. We do not believe that private employers have the moral right to dictate to their employees what medical treatments they must participate in.
One important point to note is that the ability to work is not entirely a voluntary contract between employer and employee. People need jobs to survive. While one person that is opposed to a workplace environment can find a new job, it is not possible for half of Amazon’s employees, for example, to simply switch jobs as there are not enough openings to handle that large an influx of workers.
Businesses can, and often do, leverage markets that have a surplus of labor to push employees to accept wages or otherwise participate in actions that they normally would not do if there were actual options for other work. With the Covid-19 economy, individuals are not free to simply find another job.
While the law should not protect employees from every possibility of bad things an employer may require, we believe this situation is a proper one for government to ban the ability of employers to mandate that their employees receive an emergency authorized vaccination. Reasons for this include:
First, the ability to refuse health treatments is intensely personal and should not be infringed.
Second, the government has, by its actions, created much fear and uncertainty in society. Business owners fear being sued (on this note, we openly advocate that there should be laws stating that there is no liability for not requiring a vaccine), fear the health departments, and fear the effects of having employees quarantined by government actors.
In other words, businesses are responding to the government’s use of force and creation of fear, and the government needs to act to correct the outcomes of this fear by protecting fundamental rights that are at stake. Since the government and health departments of the world have spread fear, businesses will respond to that and try to avoid liability, meaning that their decisions are not entirely voluntary either. They are trying to stay afloat, and some believe that this requires mandating the vaccination. When the government has acted to create fear and uncertainty, it is not honest to pretend that businesses are responding and making pure, voluntary, and reasoned decisions about a vaccination.
We must stop pretending that all decisions businesses make are because they want to make them. The law regulates an amazing amount of business decisions, and in our world of intense regulation and legal liability, we need to counteract that pressure some by removing options that violate some of our most fundamental individual rights.
Third, we believe it is simply wrong to believe that a person possesses the ‘right’ or ‘authority’ to compel a person to participate in a widespread medical experiment. The government needs to be protecting society, both in the short and long run, and mandating vaccinations that are untested could have seriously heavy future results if there are unanticipated harms.
Despite these factors, many still believe that businesses should be able to mandate vaccinations for their employees. If that is truly a freedom that needs to exist in the world, then we submit that freedom always entails responsibility. If a person has the freedom to compel another to take a potentially dangerous action, then the person has the responsibility to compensate for damages that arise.
In other words, we believe that if businesses have the right to mandate vaccinations, then businesses have the obligation to compensate their employees for any harm that arises, to them or their children. These are the same principles that require employers provide a safe work place and compensate for injuries.
The weight of the potential damage from a vaccine injury should not fall on the shoulders of a worker that cannot find new employment. Rather, it should rest on the shoulders of those who compelled the vaccination in the first place.
6. Policing Health Decisions Leads to Less Freedoms for All
People’s individual decisions affect us on a daily basis. Someone can drink and drive. Someone can smoke with kids in the house. Someone can eat candy and soda pop all day and increase health care premiums.
All of us will do things that others disagree with. None of us act in a way that would create a situation where all of our actions are approved by a majority vote of the rest of the world. When we start policing health decisions, we wade much closer to becoming a full police state.
With the Covid-19 response, businesses often have adopted health related policies that they start to enforce on their own. Costco requires masks, for example, and will actively police its stores. Others want to police whether people have been tested, vaccinated, or followed certain health protocols.
Once a business elects to police health procedures, where does the line get drawn? What if, as a business owner, a person is morally opposed to conduct that spreads STD’s and only wants to serve customers that do not have an STD? Should a potential customer be required to show a negative test for an STD?
Many say ‘no, because the STD is not spread like Covid-19’. Yes, both spread differently, but both are very serious public health concerns, as confirmed by the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2018/press-release-2018-std-prevention-conference.html. For a business owner, why shouldn’t they start policing who their employees sleep with, and mandate that negative tests are obtained and returned? Both illnesses can cause lost productivity and employee time, so why is one of less concern to a business owner than another?
Many will scoff at the above example. America is built on precedent though. The conduct we tolerate today becomes the law of tomorrow. If businesses can police our health information and our health actions, there is little of our lives they can’t start to push to regulate and control.
The world does not need to place police in every business. The stronger the presence of those who police and enforce rules, the more that trust, compassion, and basic human decency break down. If a business starts, for example, controlling whether tweets are allowed to stay up or not, they suddenly assume a massive burden of responding to complaints, as most things offend someone, somewhere.
Costs skyrocket, basic human decency erodes, and people lose the ability to interact with each other when they can constantly ask another person to intervene to compel a person to follow all required norms.
In these situations, the intense pressure to conform produces serious strain and fear. Mental illnesses, we predict, will steadily rise. Suicides will increase. Violence will continue to climb. And yes, these are direct results, from our perspective, of using force to police people’s most fundamental rights and their ability to refuse health treatments.
7. There Are No Checks and Balances
Ultimately, one fundamental and serious concern is that there are no checks and balances when we place the medical ‘experts’ as our public policy makers. Positions of power are always sought after by people who lust for power. The Founding Fathers knew this, and intentionally structured government to have a strong system of checks and balances that would help to prevent any group from gaining too much power.
Yet, when we accept health experts as our leaders and structure laws, expectations, and demands on their advice, we are entering extremely dangerous territory. Consider a few examples:
· Covid-19 shutdowns (which were meant to protect people) meant that pesticides could not be produced and distributed as normal. In East Africa, when the fact of no pesticides is combined with additional rain, the results are devastating. Locust swarms have arisen that are the size of Moscow and that destroy everything in their path. Millions of people are at risk of starving to death, and many in East Africa consider the threat from the locusts as far worse than the threat from Covid-19. See https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/africa/locust-swarms-ethiopia-intl/index.html
· Blood donations are way down, cancer treatments are being delayed, and many people are not having routine care performed. Many doctors (over 40,000) fear that there will be a significant increase in serious health issues as a result of the government shutdowns and fear spread. https://gbdeclaration.org/
· Refrigerator manufacturers are backordered. A sales rep from RC Willey stated that the two large fridge manufacturers are backordered over one million units, and that the wait for a new fridge can be months long right now. NPR confirms that this is due to Covid-19 shutdowns, fear, and changes with people stuck at home https://www.npr.org/2020/09/22/915240713/shortage-of-new-refrigerators-leaves-appliance-shoppers-out-in-the-cold. What does this mean? If your fridge breaks and you need to keep your food cool and safe, you may just be out of luck for a few months.
This list can go on and on of ‘unanticipated’ effects of Covid-19 measures taken so far. We believe we are only beginning to see the effects of the Covid-19 measures so far, and that such will continue into the future for quite some time.
The point is simply that Covid-19 should be a political issue, and not a health expert issue. It must follow a political system of checks and balances. A political system where people can share how proposed legislation and measures will impact others. Health experts are not experts in economies, refrigerator supply, pesticides, etc. We cannot blindly follow their advice that is related to health alone without there being significant impacts to other things that also impact health.
We are too interconnected as a world, and it is wrong to wholesale adopt health recommendations when we need an entire economy of items to continue living and working.
Ultimately, when it comes to vaccinations, there are no checks and balances on what can or can’t be done with them. Vaccine manufacturers are even protected from liability in many situations, and the law has removed them from many of the same oversights and balances in place on other industries. If they can modify our genetic code (and not get sued much for later damages), can they also add modifications that make us less rebellious, stronger, more open to suggestion, etc.?
Many will scoff at these notions, but what is to stop someone hungry for power from trying? There are no checks and balances in place, nothing that dictates the risk versus reward equation, and no way for people to vote on what they feel is important for health related items. In other words, we are left to simply believe that someone with enough education and experience to make them an expert somehow also has no human weakness that would cause them to do things for personal gain.
Before we even consider whether it is appropriate or not to let others dictate our health choices, we should first explore whether it is possible to construct a system of checks and balances that will protect us against intrusion by those who are seeking power or benefits at the expense of others. Prior to there being such a system in place to guard against those seeking for power, we should not even entertain allowing others to compel us to participate in medical procedures that we object to, even if it might speed up the return to normalcy. From our perspective, the costs simply do not justify the benefits.
8. Government should not be allowed to circumvent our rights.
Even if the government agrees to not mandate the vaccination, we believe that the government should not be allowed to circumvent basic rights by paying businesses to do so. In other words, we believe it is important that the government be restricted so that it cannot pay businesses to mandate the vaccination for their employees.
The Federal government has a long history now of buying freedoms from the states. The government knows that it can have power to do things it wouldn’t otherwise be able to do if it buys the power. For example, with regulating education, the Federal government was not given power to do that directly. So, instead, the Federal government taxes the citizens of a state (a power it has), takes money from those citizens, and then offers money back to the states if they voluntarily agree to follow the Federal regulations on education. Once the state starts taking the money, it is almost impossible to stop doing so.
It is the same for business. The government can circumvent restrictions that stop it from doing things by offering a bonus or tax break to a business that does mandate vaccinations, for example.
We firmly believe that the government should not be allowed to incentive conduct that it is not allowed to do itself, and we advocate for a ‘non-circumvention’ bill that prevents the government from encouraging or enticing others to do what it should not do itself.
9. What Can We Do?
With all of the above being said, we recommend that you contact your representatives and senators, at both the state and federal level. In addition, you can speak up and share information on these subjects. Help educate others of the importance of maintaining freedoms.
Additionally, you can donate funds to causes or efforts that are working to preserve these important freedoms. Donations to Believe can be used to help Believe in its efforts to preserve freedom and build good in society.
In contacting representatives and senators, we recommend including the following points:
I oppose the ability of government and business to mandate I participate in emergency medical procedures, such as emergency use vaccinations, and ask that you protect my fundamental right to refuse medical treatment;
If you do not accept this and still allow businesses to mandate vaccinations, I ask that you make employers liable for damages to employees caused by the vaccination they mandate. The burden of dealing with serious side effects should not fall on the average person, but should be the responsibility of those who mandated the use of the vaccine or on those who voluntarily participated, without the threat of job loss.
I also ask that you restrict the ability of anyone to require me to participate in a genetic procedure that modifies my genetic code.
For those businesses who elect to not mandate the vaccination, I ask that you exempt them from liability for that decision so that they do not fear being sued if they don’t require vaccinations.
Finally, I also ask that you place limitations on the government, so that they cannot incentivize businesses to mandate the vaccination for their employees, as this would effectively circumvent any limitations on government and take away our fundamental and important liberties.