🎙Decoding the Debate on COVID-19 Boosters 🌟BREAKING NEWS🌟

🌟BREAKING NEWS🌟 Imagine having a one-on-one consultation with a top medical expert who presents you with unbiased facts about current COVID-19 vaccine boosters. Dr. Michael Koren discusses government mandates versus recommendations for the boosters, and gives an in-depth analysis of the data behind Moderna and Pfizer's bivalent boosters.

Dr. Koren also dives deep into the complexities of individual risk assessment, highlighting factors such as age, health conditions, and daily exposure that can play a significant role in one's decision to get the COVID booster shot. With a balanced view, we tackle the need for personal decisions based on trusted medical advice rather than overarching government advisories. This episode offers a ray of clarity amidst the confusion surrounding the COVID booster government mandates. Join us for an enlightening episode empowering you with the knowledge to make informed decisions for your health.

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Have a question for Dr. Koren? Email him at askDrKoren@MedEvidence.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to MedEvidence, where we help you navigate the truth behind medical research with unbiased, evidence-proven facts, powered by Encore Research Group and hosted by cardiologist and top medical researcher, Dr Michael Coran. Dr Coran, the COVID-vax boosters were in the news this week. A MedEvidence listener wanted your opinion about whether the government should recommend or mandate the booster.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Great question. Thank you for listening and thank you for that fabulous question. So let's break it down a little bit. So, first of all, we have to think about what the government role in healthcare is, and we also have to think of what mandate versus recommend really mean, and keep in mind that our motto is the truth behind the data. So ultimately, we want to have an answer that reflects the truth for each individual. Okay, so let's start with mandates. Mandates generally don't work because of the psychology of mandates. When you tell people that you have to do something, people will say, okay, well, why?

Speaker 1: 1:03

do? I have to do it.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Is there a way around me? Having to do it, they lose the fact that this may be in their best interest. So, in general, mandates don't work. Now there are occasions when mandates are so important that you need to enforce them, but in general that's not a good government policy because all you do is you create a reaction that will defeat the purpose of the mandate. So recommendations Recommendations can be tricky and recommendations should be tailored to the illness or the problem that you're addressing. So, unfortunately, when it comes to COVID, it becomes very political and, interestingly, here in the state of Florida, the governor, dr Rondesantis, and the governor Rondesantis and the Surgeon General, dr Ladoppo, had a press conference where they were specifically saying that they did not agree with the federal government and FDA approval of the products across the board, and so when we analyze that, we will find the middle ground. That, I believe, is the right answer to the question that was addressed.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Ok, so the government looked at the data for the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent COVID boosters. Bivalent means that they cover two different strains of the virus and we know that right now the common strain of COVID is an Omicron strain. The virus is constantly changing, but we're still seeing Omicron-type virus cases throughout the country and there's been a major uptick in these cases recently. So there are some concerns. So that's the bad news. The good news is that the Omicron strains in general tend to be less lethal than the original strain, which we call the wild type strain, or some of the previous strains, like the alpha strain or the delta strain. So that's good news. But even though it's less lethal, people can get really sick and if you're vulnerable you can die from this illness. So I'm applauding the fact that the FDA did recommend that the bivalent vaccine get approved.

Speaker 2: 3:10

And then we get into the details of what the recommendations should look like. Again, I don't believe in a mandate, but the recommendations were that anybody over the age of six could be a candidate for this. Does that mean that everybody over the age of six months, it is, should go back the recommendations that everybody over the age of six months should be a candidate for this vaccine. So just because everybody is a candidate for this vaccine doesn't mean that they should get it. And I congratulate Dr Paul Offit, who was on the advisory committee, and he made a very sensible statement which he says that for a lot of young people a booster is probably not necessary.

Speaker 2: 3:47

We know that in the younger populations, if you're basically healthy, that COVID tends to be a benign illness. Having said that, there may be circumstances, even in very young people, that would change that opinion. So, for example, if you're a young person that has really bad asthma, you probably want to get a vaccine. If you're somebody that has had some previous serious viral illnesses at a young age that caused hospitalization, you probably want to get a vaccine. If you're a young person and you're living with an older, vulnerable grandparent, you may want to get a vaccine. So there are circumstances and the safety of the vaccines was questioned, and the other side of the coin was that the people that are anti-vaccine will exaggerate the safety issues. Anything that we put in our body can cause a side effect, but fortunately, these vaccines are very, very safe and the side effect profile is such that they can occasionally cause inflammatory conditions, including cardiac inflammation, most commonly pericarditis, which is an inflammation around the lining of the heart, but it is very rare. It's treatable and it's almost never to the extent where people need to be hospitalized or worse. So let's not exaggerate that side effect and put that into the context of what the benefit is versus what the risk is.

Speaker 2: 5:07

So again, in younger people, for most people the vaccine booster is not required, or not recommended in my opinion, because their medical risk is low and unless there's some sort of exposure risk that puts them in a position where you don't want them to get sick and pass it along, then in general the recommendation would be reasonable to err on the side of not vaccinating that person. On the other hand, once you get older, the complications of COVID can be devastating and for those people, for example people over 65, you should get a vaccine. There's no reason not to. Interestingly, people over 65 are less likely to have a side effect from the vaccine because they don't have as a vigorous of an inflammatory reaction to vaccines in general. So for those people it's kind of a no-brainer that why wouldn't you get the vaccine and boost your immunity, especially a vaccine that's more up to date and covering the strains that are actually infecting people in the community? And then you have everybody else in between.

Speaker 2: 6:07

So people, again, who are between the ages of infancy and 65, have a decision to make and again I would say this is based on your medical risk. People that are on the older end of that spectrum are going to be at higher risk than people at the under end of that spectrum. People that have preexisting conditions, be it lung disease or diabetes or other things that put you at high risk are going to be at a point where they should more likely consider getting the vaccine, versus people who are very healthy should be less likely to get the vaccine. And, of course, your day-to-day exposure elements are also important, including people who you're around. So you may not personally feel that you're at high risk, but if you're around people who are very, very high risk, you may want to think about being vaccinated.

Speaker 2: 6:53

So the point of all this is that I think it's very dangerous for governments to say we recommend the vaccine or we don't recommend the vaccine. What they should say is that we know certain things about the vaccine and the disease that you should know and again, very simply, those things are if you're at high medical risk, you can have very serious complications of COVID. If you're older, over age 65, you can have very significant complications of COVID. You can pass COVID along to somebody who is at higher risk than you are. So you should consider that. And again, your personal history is very important. So if you had side effects to vaccines or other things, well, maybe you are on the side of not taking it, and all these things should be done with medical people who you trust. So don't necessarily trust the government to tell you what to do with your health care. Trust your personal physicians, trust your people in your life who have researched this and trust other sources that are looking at this objectively.

Speaker 1: 7:48

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