These being the times we live in, one of the mostly widely discussed pandemic-related stories from the week was the contention by rapper Nicki Minaj that she was declining to get any of the vaccines for covid because a friend of her cousin had been vaccinated and allegedly had some, to put it delicately, exceptionally unpleasant side effects.
Details, it seems, are sketchy. Yeah, that's the word I'd use: sketchy. So, as a result, we don't know if it's been determined that the exceptionally unpleasant side effects were deemed to be a result of the vaccination. Those specific side effects aren't widely considered to be byproducts of getting vaccinated. And, as someone who has been vaccinated, if that particular side effect had happened, I'd have definitely let someone know.
Even with limited details, it behooved a not-insignificant number of public health officials to contend that particular issue was highly unlikely to happen as a result of getting vaccinated and that vaccines have been deemed to be very safe.
Yes, this is 2021 and the chief medical advisor to the president and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was compelled by interest if not outcry to discuss another person's ... problem.
And we wonder why fewer and fewer people are feeling called to public service.
Anyway, as interest in the story rose (notice how I didn't say "swelled"), a familiar contention was voiced, again. Namely, that we should all be doing our own research into vaccines before deciding if we're going to take them.
So in a rare moment of candor and personal self-awareness, I'm going to break through the fourth wall here and let you in on a little secret that will probably need to be put in proper context.
I'm not going to do any research.
Yep. Nope. I am not going to spend hours delving into thick stacks of papers written in an obscure version of English known as "Medicalise" in an effort to glean critical data-driven insights from double-blind studies and descriptions of molecular interactions on the nature of mRNA-driven vaccines. I mean, I don't even understand that last sentence and I wrote it.
Also, I once misspelled mRNA in a Google search and I'm now on the mailing list of the Minnesota chapter of the National Rifle Association. So, maybe I should just stick to what I know. Which is not cell-based research.
I won't be doing any research, if by "research" you mean that really hard, involved boring thing that it's great people who know what they're doing actually do before presenting their findings to other smart people who advise us on the safe, prudent course of action.
However, if by "research" you mean looking for information on the Internet only to get sidetracked to videos of dogs dancing to Camila Cabello, pointless debates over which of the NCAA football games of the century was really the Game of the Century and wondering if those big straw cowboy hats that have a flat brim pointed up in the back are just for women because they look pretty effective if you ask me -- then yeah, I'm going to do a LOT of that.
And I'll generally be doing this research where a lot of us do this kind of research. I promise I'll wash my hands while singing the "Happy Birthday Song" afterward.
The issue, as I see (and possibly engage in) it is that a lot of us play the "doing the research" card as a way to justify never actually taking any action because we "need more research." Or, a lot of us think "doing research" is just frantically searching the Internet for poorly formed and badly authenticated claims that support what we really want to think.
So, instead of "research," I'm going to do this. I'm going to read the papers. You know they're really pretty good for keeping folks informed. And "Pearls Before Swine." And I'm going to watch the news shows I trust and I'm going to listen to the government agencies in charge of, you know, researching this sort of stuff. We are paying them to do it, after all. And I'm not going to pretend I'm qualified to determine if a vaccine will work on my own.
This seems pretty realistic to me. But there are those during these troubled times who might consider it brave and that I'm showing a lot of ... guts.
Yeah, with a nod to Nicki's cousin's friend, let's go with "guts."