Insight Monday 6 April 2020: The Other Side – Part 3: TSA Medical Police?

News:

Bill Gates was in the news last week, promoting the development of a Covid-19 vaccine and, of course, having governments worldwide mandate a program of vaccinations. Under his proposal, everyone would have an identification card to prove their medical records before being allowed to fly.

Who would the likely enforcers of this policy be? Logically, this would fall to the security checkers at the TSA, would easily add another step to their processes and unquestioned authority at airports. Imagine having to carry another card with you to show in addition to your “real ID” or passport at the security checkpoint to verify that you have had a vaccination.

What happens if you go to the airport without your vaccination card? Would you be denied a flight, or will there be a national database of approved travelers, like TSA precheck? Would the TSA agent be ready with a needle? Perish that thought. Or perhaps a microchip could be implanted with the vaccine to be read with a scanner at the checkpoint. Technology offers us options today that George Orwell warned us about.

Analysis:

If bio-terrorism is the newest threat, is the TSA really the authority we want on the front lines of medicine? My reaction is no, as the TSA lacks the cultural flexibility and medical knowledge for knowledgeable enforcement of such mandates.

As someone with specific allergies to commonly utilized vaccine adjuvants, I can tell you that for a percentage of the population, forced vaccination can lead to potential anaphylactic shock, among other very serious side effects, including death. Believe me, you only want to experience anaphylactic shock once in your lifetime at the most. A one policy fits all approach to medicine doesn’t work, but the TSA seems only capable of that type of activity. That scares me, knowing the inflexible attitudes of the TSA personnel and their likely reaction to any exceptions to the rules.

While Mr. Gates proposed policies are interesting, they certainly cannot be applied universally without negatively impacting people for whom vaccination is medically difficult. I haven’t had a vaccination in more than 40 years, and certainly wouldn’t want to be given one by the TSA unless a full ICU was nearby to handle the possible side-effects.

Insight:

We all want to avoid the spread of disease. When I first started traveling internationally 57 years ago, we had to carry yellow-colored vaccination cards with our passports, with doctors certifying that certain vaccinations were given. We may be headed back to that same system many years later, but with a more draconian system.

For me, certain vaccinations, such as measles and mumps, and polio, are unnecessary, as I experienced all of those in my youth and built strong natural immunity. Given the annual mutation of the common influenza virus, can we develop a vaccine that will work on next year’s strain rather than last year’s? It is not as simple as Mr. Gates or the media would have you believe. Media reports indicate that five different strains of the coronavirus are involved during our current global pandemic.

The effectiveness of vaccines has been in question for some time, particularly for influenza, Last year, it was 13% effective, and deemed a success. Given that the pharmaceutical industry has an exception to legal responsibility for side-effects, testing is sometimes fast-tracked, and the impacts of a new vaccine not fully known.

I’m not comfortable being among the guinea pigs for a coronavirus vaccine that may or may not have efficacy for the disease, and certainly don’t want my choice not to participate to curtail my ability to travel by air. I’ll be the one taking his chances, as the cure, for me, may be as bad or worse than the disease it is meant to protect against.

The last thing I want to see is a man in a dark blue shirt with a needle at the airport.

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