In June 2021, a physician testifying before the Ohio state legislature claimed that COVID vaccines made people magnetic. Then a registered nurse from Strongsville tried to prove it.
I am so thankful for vaccines. I had a very bad case of COVID prior to availability of vaccines. Nothing ever made me so sick as COVID. As an RN seeing all the death and disabilities due to COVID and the fear of a vaccine rather than the pathogen 🦠 is concerning. The widespread use of misinformation concerning heath is dangerous.
I never fail to be amazed that people can fall for the quackery of "experts" who create the most outrageous arguments to fight science and medicine. Thanks, Dr Offitt, for calling some of them out.
I live 45 minutes away from Sandy Hook and the fact that she is trying to pin the worst day in our state's history on vaccines just infuriates me to no end. Those children (including the shooter) didn't die because they were vaccinated. They died because of a very disturbed young person whose mother, who obviously had her own set of problems, thought purchasing destructive guns would help him. CT has some of the strongest gun laws in the nation after this horrible day when those beautiful children and adults who tried to save them were taken from us.
As an added note, I tested positive on Christmas day (up-to-date on vaccines and boosted) as COVID finally caught up with me, in my late 60's, ended last week of 2023 battling COVID to enter the first week of 2024 with a cold virus on top of it. Very unpleasant but it never got into my lungs. So YAY for vaccines!!!!
Interesting that a lot of her assertions - DNA damage, higher risk of dementia and infertility, and geriatric-cidal if not genocidal effects - have been proven for Covid illness.
Mitochondrial DNA damage in particular occurs with illness. Via our local CHOP :
You know what? At this point I don’t even think these people’s issues are vaccines themselves. They just want a social scapegoat to blame their social, political and economical issues on. Before it used to be the Jews, then the Muslims and now the vaccine. Vaccines are an excuse, even for many antivaxxers. It’s simply a weapon to give meaning to some people’s lives and
some conservative political appointees something to yap about as it fits their anti-establishment and anti-government philosophy of life. I think our focus should be on the vaccine hesitant. Those neutral everyday people/patients who don’t bother to think twice when they hear such blatant and fear based messaging from influencers or even MD and scientifically trained professionals. They simply focus on the fear and risk they hear. It’s thus the job of health care professionals to establish this trust with their patients and take the time to explain things to them - at least the ones who are open to discussion! Thank you Dr. Offit.
Dr Offit, why present ridiculous examples? Everyone would be better served if you joined forces with those the vaccines skeptics side agree are the best representing the opposing views and had public discussions to get to the bottom of key issues facing the vaccine efforts. Continuing a smear campaign (anti-vaxx) is losing support for you. From say Jan 2020 to now, just for myself I’ve done a complete 180 on what you have to say on things. I’m just being honest with you, these tactics are only causing you to lose support and credibility. It’s time for you to take a new approach to gaining back support. Or do you continue to refuse an different approach such as what I describe above because subjected to that format the whole vaccine scheme falls apart? The vaccine side seems to acknowledge all products come with a risk, but for whatever reason they also seem to act in a manner that the public can’t know about these risks at any cost.
Is there any evidence that a concern about “magnetism” played any significant role in vaccine hesitancy in the USA? Does it explain why millions of Americans got the first mRNA dose but not the second? To make any progress on this problem, we have to address the real issues: the covid authoritarianism that destroyed trust in the public health apparatus, failure to address legitimate safety concerns, the illegal OSHA mandate, careless approval/recommendation of boosters, and the shifting amorphous “Science” that was used to justify it all. Bogus straw man arguments like these are simply being used to justify censorship of all legitimate questioning of vaccination.
Lucid and terse. Sinclair Lewis character George Babbitt would have loved your article because it has “punch” and “sizzle” and “pow”. Many thanks for the exegesis of glaring stupidity regarding claims of “the magnetic side effects" of receiving mRNA vaccine products. And the testimony of this apparently licensed doctor to the Ohio solons was presumably under oath.
I am so thankful for vaccines. I had a very bad case of COVID prior to availability of vaccines. Nothing ever made me so sick as COVID. As an RN seeing all the death and disabilities due to COVID and the fear of a vaccine rather than the pathogen 🦠 is concerning. The widespread use of misinformation concerning heath is dangerous.
Why haven’t the people making these claims produced a physiological mechanism by which these alleged phenomena can occur?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence beyond anecdotes.
I never fail to be amazed that people can fall for the quackery of "experts" who create the most outrageous arguments to fight science and medicine. Thanks, Dr Offitt, for calling some of them out.
I live 45 minutes away from Sandy Hook and the fact that she is trying to pin the worst day in our state's history on vaccines just infuriates me to no end. Those children (including the shooter) didn't die because they were vaccinated. They died because of a very disturbed young person whose mother, who obviously had her own set of problems, thought purchasing destructive guns would help him. CT has some of the strongest gun laws in the nation after this horrible day when those beautiful children and adults who tried to save them were taken from us.
As an added note, I tested positive on Christmas day (up-to-date on vaccines and boosted) as COVID finally caught up with me, in my late 60's, ended last week of 2023 battling COVID to enter the first week of 2024 with a cold virus on top of it. Very unpleasant but it never got into my lungs. So YAY for vaccines!!!!
Interesting that a lot of her assertions - DNA damage, higher risk of dementia and infertility, and geriatric-cidal if not genocidal effects - have been proven for Covid illness.
Mitochondrial DNA damage in particular occurs with illness. Via our local CHOP :
https://www.chop.edu/news/researchers-find-covid-19-causes-mitochondrial-dysfunction-heart-and-other-organs#:~:text=Now%2C%20a%20multi%2Dinstitutional%20consortium,virus%2C%20leading%20to%20dysfunction%20in
And many impressionable youth may have thought powers like Magneto or Iron Man would be desirable, so maybe that backfired for a couple people.
As life long Ohioan, that hearing was a sad day in our legislative history.
You know what? At this point I don’t even think these people’s issues are vaccines themselves. They just want a social scapegoat to blame their social, political and economical issues on. Before it used to be the Jews, then the Muslims and now the vaccine. Vaccines are an excuse, even for many antivaxxers. It’s simply a weapon to give meaning to some people’s lives and
some conservative political appointees something to yap about as it fits their anti-establishment and anti-government philosophy of life. I think our focus should be on the vaccine hesitant. Those neutral everyday people/patients who don’t bother to think twice when they hear such blatant and fear based messaging from influencers or even MD and scientifically trained professionals. They simply focus on the fear and risk they hear. It’s thus the job of health care professionals to establish this trust with their patients and take the time to explain things to them - at least the ones who are open to discussion! Thank you Dr. Offit.
Dr Offit, why present ridiculous examples? Everyone would be better served if you joined forces with those the vaccines skeptics side agree are the best representing the opposing views and had public discussions to get to the bottom of key issues facing the vaccine efforts. Continuing a smear campaign (anti-vaxx) is losing support for you. From say Jan 2020 to now, just for myself I’ve done a complete 180 on what you have to say on things. I’m just being honest with you, these tactics are only causing you to lose support and credibility. It’s time for you to take a new approach to gaining back support. Or do you continue to refuse an different approach such as what I describe above because subjected to that format the whole vaccine scheme falls apart? The vaccine side seems to acknowledge all products come with a risk, but for whatever reason they also seem to act in a manner that the public can’t know about these risks at any cost.
Amazing how cheap parlor tricks at parties can be used for "proof" of magnetism.
This is a terrible, weak straw man argument that is unworthy of the author.
https://www.scribbr.co.uk/fallacy/straw-man-argument/
Is there any evidence that a concern about “magnetism” played any significant role in vaccine hesitancy in the USA? Does it explain why millions of Americans got the first mRNA dose but not the second? To make any progress on this problem, we have to address the real issues: the covid authoritarianism that destroyed trust in the public health apparatus, failure to address legitimate safety concerns, the illegal OSHA mandate, careless approval/recommendation of boosters, and the shifting amorphous “Science” that was used to justify it all. Bogus straw man arguments like these are simply being used to justify censorship of all legitimate questioning of vaccination.
Lucid and terse. Sinclair Lewis character George Babbitt would have loved your article because it has “punch” and “sizzle” and “pow”. Many thanks for the exegesis of glaring stupidity regarding claims of “the magnetic side effects" of receiving mRNA vaccine products. And the testimony of this apparently licensed doctor to the Ohio solons was presumably under oath.
Thanks again Paul. Tenpenny is clearly bonkers!
Ignore the russian disinformation scam that is sophocles dr offitt. Thanks for calling out the B S. WIth truth!
Separate Signal from noise . . .
This is a silly case, I agree. It would be good if you complement it with a serious case - Brianne Dressen for example. Lots to unpack there.
sad