Now The Truth Is Finally (Kind Of) Being Told By Mainstream Media About COVID Vaccine Side Effects

Lost in the debate around COVID vaccine efficacy is another, equally important debate around vaccine safety.

For years, the media and its "expert" allies have studiously ignored any and all complaints or evidence of any harmful side effects from COVID vaccines. Instead, they've purposefully downplayed any concerns with the simplistic and repetitive "safe and effective" messaging. Dismissing anyone who points out evidence to the contrary as a "conspiracy theorist" or "anti-vaxxer."

But apparently with the absurdist, anti-science vaccine mandates, for the most part, safety in the background, the truth can now be told.

The New York Times published an article and newsletter on Friday acknowledging that vaccine side effects are real, can seriously affect people, and should be covered. What now? Where has that been for the past three years? Carefully, safely buried by "journalists" devoted to protecting their political ideology and allies. 

The Times acknowledged that vaccines can cause and exacerbate heart inflammation, "especially in young men and boys." It also acknowledged that "the vaccines caused severe shingles" in limited cases per data in Hong Kong. An article by Apoorva Mandavilli, a profound purveyor of misinformation on COVID in schools and the efficacy of pandemic interventions, explained how Michelle Zimmerman, a 37-year-old with a Ph.D in neuroscience was diagnosed with brain damage, while believing it was caused by the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine.

"When I let myself think about the devastation of what this has done to my life, and how much I’ve lost, sometimes it feels even too hard to comprehend," Dr. Zimmerman, told the Times, as well as explaining she believes it was caused by a contaminated batch of vaccines.

Just a few short years ago, she would have been dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, because her belief contradicted Fauci and the CDC. Now, she's being covered by the New York Times.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

COVID Vaccine Concerns Now Allowed In Left Wing Discourse

Even the Times' newsletter said that those who've had vaccine side effects should be recognized, blaming experts for their efforts to downplay them with the express purpose of promoting vaccine uptake.

David Leonhardt, author of the Times newsletter, said he believes "people who are suffering deserve recognition — and the lack of it can be infuriating." Then he quotes Dr. Janet Woodcock, a former F.D.A. commissioner, saying "she regretted not doing more to respond to people who blame the vaccines for harming them while she was in office." ‘I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously,’ Woodcock continued.

Sounds almost exactly like what so many COVID critics were saying in 2021, while being called "anti-science" for their troubles. Leonhardt now acknowledges that "public health depends on public trust, and public trust in turn depends on honesty." And that "government officials and academic experts sometimes made the mistake of deciding that Americans couldn't handle the truth."

It's hard to overstate how much damage those officials and experts caused by refusing to acknowledge the truth. Or working with social media companies to bury it. Even today, posting information about COVID vaccine side effects on say, Facebook, can lead to censorship, labels or even bans. Pre-Musk, Twitter would limit the reach of information vaccine effects, remove posts, or restrict users for criticizing vaccines or mask mandates. 

These experts effectively told the public that only their word was to be trusted, though they got every major question wrong.  

As Leonhardt says, "Instead, experts emphasized evidence that was convenient to their recommendations and buried inconvenient facts." Welcome to 2020, New York Times. 

Experts Lost Trust Because Of Their Own Hubris

"They exaggerated the risk of outdoor Covid transmission, the virus’s danger to children and the benefits of mask mandates, among other things," he continued. "The goal may have been admirable — fighting a deadly virus — but the strategy backfired. Many people ended up confused, wondering what the truth was."

It's not admirable to lie to the public, mislead the media and politicians on the actual science and evidence, and cause immense harm in the process. The CDC's recommendations led to school closures, vaccine mandates and toddler masking. The FDA approved the vaccines ahead of schedule because of political pressure and a lack of awareness from the commissioner. And they've never apologized for any of it.

Don't give the Times too much credit though, it still downplayed the risk and severity of side effects too.

"Experts told Apoorva that some people who believe Covid vaccines have harmed them are probably wrong about the cause of their problems. How so? Human beings suffer mysterious medical ailments all the time. If you happened to begin experiencing one in the weeks after receiving a vaccine, you might blame the shot, too, even if it were a coincidence," Leonhard writes.

Boy does that sound like "Long COVID" or what? Mysteriously though, the Times never seems to apply those caveats to long COVID, just the vaccines.

After all this time, it's nice to see an acknowledgment in a major media outlet that the vaccine does cause side effects. That experts were wrong, dismissive, and arrogant. Often purposefully lying or "exaggerating" to get compliance with their desired mandates.

But while the Times is now willing to criticize the "experts" in some areas, it still unquestioningly accepts its assertions in others. In the newsletter, Leonhardt publishes an analysis from October 2022-April 2023 of deaths by vaccination status as "proof" of its immense benefits. Ignoring the cherry-picked time frames, poor quality data, the lack of definition on who's considered vaccinated or un-vaccinated, as well as the clear lack of benefit for younger age groups, even in that data set.

It's a C for effort. Which is an improvement on the media's unquestionable F for its performance during COVID.