UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

There is nothing worse than a medical doctor whose newest contribution to the infodemic is to aggravate our pandemic woes by promoting vaccine hesitancy. Such is one who writes for a major daily. He persists in presenting alternative “facts” and long discredited anti-COVID drugs.

What’s sad is that he peddles his views behind the veneer of a medical authority that misleads people into thinking his is the correct view. He apparently belongs to a group of doctors who say they are concerned citizens. This group has been putting out ads that undermine government efforts to restore a semblance of normality in the country through its vaccination drive. All the major medical specialty organizations have been solid in their support of vaccination based on medical science, thus putting the rogue group in a minority position with its stance.

Now he is peddling another half-truth of “alarming” data about excess deaths associated with mass vaccination. But nothing can be further from the truth. “Excess deaths” is defined as the number of deaths above what is normally expected in a population during non-pandemic or epidemic times. While it is true that there were excess deaths during this pandemic, the explanation is not so forthright as associating them with mass vaccination. Temporal association is not necessarily causation. As a matter of fact, there are more plausible explanations than that.

Consider: 1. The low-testing capacity means we are not diagnosing COVID-19 as the cause of death in many instances. This is borne out by the fact that we’re seeing reports of dead-on-arrival (DOA) cases in emergency rooms, which, upon testing of the corpse, turned out to be COVID positive. Many are thus reported as non-COVID cases in death certificates which are not corrected, ending up as excess deaths when they are due to the pandemic.

2. Post-COVID complications lead to long COVID, in which patients suffer debilitating aftermaths, like shortness of breath requiring lifelong oxygen treatment. Others may suffer heart attacks and strokes due to continuing inflammation of blood vessels in these organs. We have yet to learn about many other possible complications of severe COVID, and this lack of knowledge also contributes to “excess deaths.”

3. With the lockdowns and the fear of contracting COVID preventing their usual medical care, many with pre-existing diseases, like kidney failure, did not get dialysis treatments and died of their disease. The same goes for those with chronic diseases, such as cancer patients unable to undergo chemotherapy or surgery for their lumps. Many new cases of breast cancer have turned up at hospitals with huge tumors and at the advanced stage. TB patients who get their daily medications from health centers and hospitals under the DOTs (Directly Observed Treatment) program could not avail of their drugs, promoting progression of disease and drug resistance. Children who are dependent on continuing care in hospitals and health centers could no longer avail of it. HIV patients have not been able to get their anti-retroviral medications.

The list goes on and on. If that peddler of half-truths would just open his eyes to this reality, it may help enlighten him on the so-called excess deaths. I’m sure he is aware but is ignoring the situation on the ground to give his argument traction.

Let’s look at the whole picture on the world stage. A very good resource is Our World in Data. If we check the death-rate data in highly vaccinated countries like Israel and New Zealand, there are no excess deaths to account for. In fact, in New Zealand, the association is negative, thus showing that their COVID response is excellent. Both countries have excellent medical care systems that correctly call the cause of death, unlike what we’re seeing in our country.

On the other hand, if we look at data from countries with low vaccination rates which coincide with their having poor health care systems, they show an increased number of excess deaths. Unfortunately, the Philippines falls in this category. That blows away the theory that mass vaccination causes excess deaths.

In other words, this group is being selective with their data so they can slant the angle towards their contention that mass vaccination is correlated with excess deaths. That in itself is a very egregious attempt to tar and feather the vaccination drive. We must expose this hypocrisy of “concerned doctors,” for aren’t all doctors concerned about COVID and COVID response? This is disinformation of the highest degree, and especially because they’re medical professionals, they need to be called out and sanctioned.

To paraphrase Jose Rizal, “Ang hindi marunong kumilala sa katotohanan ay masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda.”