Aug 23, 2021 05:49 PM
https://theweek.com/science/1003867/covi...rt-animals
INTRO: A COVID-19 medical exemption is a little like having an emotional support python: In the vast majority of cases, it's unjustifiable, irresponsible, and needlessly dangerous.
But that hasn't stopped perhaps millions of Americans from smugly walking around with a metaphorical snake wrapped around their necks. Medical exemptions have increasingly become the à la mode way for anti-vaxxers to deflect judgment and excuse themselves from mandatory vaccination requirements — even when doctors say there is almost never a well-founded reason to not get the safe and effective shot. What's worse, like those who abuse the emotional support animal system, the people who take a "rules don't apply to me" approach to the COVID-19 vaccine are actively endangering the members of the community they purport to be a part of.
In recent weeks I've steadily encountered friends and family members who claim they haven't gotten the vaccine yet due to a medical condition. And though I appreciate the disclosure, all science indicates it's a phony excuse. Even as everything from a weakened immune system to asthma are cited as reasons to not get the vaccine, doctors say those conditions don't actually make one ineligible.
Art Krieg, an expert in immune disorders, was recently asked by Bloomberg if he could think of any health conditions that would disqualify someone from the COVID-19 shot: "Absolutely not," was his answer. "[T]here is no health condition where you should not get the vaccine." William "Andy" Nish, an allergy and immunology specialist, concurred: "[T]he risk of getting COVID-19 is so much higher and so much worse than the risks of getting the vaccine that it's just not even debatable," he told The American Journal of Managed Care. "It's just something that people need to do." Joel Fishbain, the medical director for infection prevention at Beaumont Hospital Grosse Pointe, further clarified to Detroit's 7 Action News that "we do recommend avoiding live virus vaccines in people with immune systems that cannot handle it. This is NOT a live virus vaccine. So that exclusion would not apply."
One notable exception would be people who had a severe allergic reaction to the first shot... (MORE)
INTRO: A COVID-19 medical exemption is a little like having an emotional support python: In the vast majority of cases, it's unjustifiable, irresponsible, and needlessly dangerous.
But that hasn't stopped perhaps millions of Americans from smugly walking around with a metaphorical snake wrapped around their necks. Medical exemptions have increasingly become the à la mode way for anti-vaxxers to deflect judgment and excuse themselves from mandatory vaccination requirements — even when doctors say there is almost never a well-founded reason to not get the safe and effective shot. What's worse, like those who abuse the emotional support animal system, the people who take a "rules don't apply to me" approach to the COVID-19 vaccine are actively endangering the members of the community they purport to be a part of.
In recent weeks I've steadily encountered friends and family members who claim they haven't gotten the vaccine yet due to a medical condition. And though I appreciate the disclosure, all science indicates it's a phony excuse. Even as everything from a weakened immune system to asthma are cited as reasons to not get the vaccine, doctors say those conditions don't actually make one ineligible.
Art Krieg, an expert in immune disorders, was recently asked by Bloomberg if he could think of any health conditions that would disqualify someone from the COVID-19 shot: "Absolutely not," was his answer. "[T]here is no health condition where you should not get the vaccine." William "Andy" Nish, an allergy and immunology specialist, concurred: "[T]he risk of getting COVID-19 is so much higher and so much worse than the risks of getting the vaccine that it's just not even debatable," he told The American Journal of Managed Care. "It's just something that people need to do." Joel Fishbain, the medical director for infection prevention at Beaumont Hospital Grosse Pointe, further clarified to Detroit's 7 Action News that "we do recommend avoiding live virus vaccines in people with immune systems that cannot handle it. This is NOT a live virus vaccine. So that exclusion would not apply."
One notable exception would be people who had a severe allergic reaction to the first shot... (MORE)
