A friend of mine was telling me that he has a number of friends and colleagues who are not getting vaccinated because they feel like the "science isn't there" for these vaccines.

Here's my response, I hope this helps.

A thread :

The science is absolutely there for each one of the vaccines in use in the US right now, and all are safe and effective.

One, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, has a known risk of a rare and dangerous blood clot with less than 1 in a million cases per vaccine dose given.

Things that we take for granted and are available over the counter like Tylenol have a worse risk profile than that.

As for vaccine science, part of the reason that we were able to get these out so quickly is because mRNA vaccine technology has been developed over decades...

...and was ready to be utilized as soon as we had the genetic code of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the beginning of this pandemic.

To be clear, nothing about mRNA vaccines is experimental, so no, this is not an "experimental drug." Decades of prior research back this up.

When injected, mRNA is rapidly translated to protein and degraded, cannot travel into the nucleus of the cell, where the DNA lives, and therefore cannot alter DNA.

We know that this is a safe means of creating a vaccine without the potential for genetic harm or infection.

As for the testing: all of the 3 phases of trials that every drug goes through for testing for FDA approval were completed appropriately and thoroughly. No corners were cut. The trials were complete and results conclusive, with the process streamlined under Operation Ward Speed.

As for the safety: all of the vaccines are tested for safety initially in Phase I and then throughout the trials. For example, in Pfizer's Phase III study alone, over 40,000 patients had received both doses of the vaccine, with excellent safety data along with proof of efficacy.

As for the speed of the trials: the speed at which efficacy trails can be completed is dependent on the RATE of baseline infections in the “control” group.

These vaccines were able to be tested for efficacy more rapidly than any vaccine produced specifically because...

...we had a faster rate of COVID infections than of any virus we have ever tested a vaccine against, given that we had tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people infected daily as these vaccines were in trials and over 500k deaths in one year.

Lastly, I've heard arguments that these vaccines were only granted emergency use authorization and not FDA approval. However, both mRNA vaccines now have more than enough data to apply for FDA approval, and the "real world" safety and efficacy data so far look good...

...so FDA approval is all but inevitable in the near future. Regardless, emergency use authorization was granted because, well, it's a pandemic and this still absolutely is an emergency.

Most of all, if folks don’t want to wear a mask any more or want schools to be open or want indoor dining and events back open, then this is literally the only way we can safely get to that point.

If we all rally together, we can have that. But people refusing may prevent us from getting there.

Armed with information and experience, we have an obligation to try to get good, reliable information out and counter the confusion and the disinformation being spread.

What do I mean?
"Investigations by the US State Department and the UK Foreign Office have described how Russian intelligence organizations seek to discredit Western COVID-19 vaccines."

Don't fall into Russia's trap. Get vaccinated.

https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1387070380549058570

One last point that I hear frequently is that people question needing to get vaccinated given that the feel that individually they are at low risk.

Regardless of the fact that I have seen young people get very sick and even die from this, that is still a common perception.

However, getting vaccinated isn’t only about your own risk of severe illness or death, but about the potential for your to be a vector for transmission to others.

If everyone gets vaccinated, then no one can transmit the virus. So not only are you safe from COVID infection...

...but you are doing your part to keep your family and your community safe as well. By breaking the chain of transmission, other people are protected from getting sick and dying, and then, hopefully, we won’t have to worry about this potentially at all any more.

But we can’t reach that point if not enough people get vaccinated.

This idea is the confluence of two massive disinformation campaigns - that COVID isn't real or isn't severe, and that vaccinations are dangerous or experimental.

Don't believe the lies. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/its-not-vaccine-hesitancy-its-covid-denialism/618724/