A friend sent me this note and attached video:

Very Interesting..See what you think..For me
personally, I'm Not going to get the vaccine.

I listened to the whole thing.

Peter Humphrey is full of it.

Humphrey exclaims, “Biden says, ‘Every American gets the vaccine’”!! He implies that we will be forced to be vaccinated. That is a lie, of course. Biden is not forcing anyone to be vaccinated.

Schools can require students to be vaccinated in order to protect other people. I agree 100% with that. Are you old enough to remember people getting polio, for example? I sure do. Vaccines stopped all that.

Employers can require employees to get vaccinated. I certainly want to know if people in stores where I go have been vaccinated (when vaccines become more available, of course) and that they wear masks.

Dr Lee Merrit is full of it.

Dr Merrit opposes the type of vaccines being developed in the US

She correctly describes how classic vaccines are made and work the way “the real body does when it gets sick.” I believe she is correct. She doesn’t seem to be against this kind of vaccine.

As far as I can tell, American companies are working on different types of vaccines but not on the kind she likes:

The currently authorized Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
is not a live vaccine.

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine are mRNA
vaccines. There is not a live component to either
of them.

None of the COVID-19 vaccines being developed in
the United States are made with either live or
inactivated whole COVID-19 virus.

The CDC says:

Messenger RNA vaccines—also called mRNA
vaccines—are some of the first COVID-19 vaccines
authorized for use in the United States.

mRNA vaccines are a new type of vaccine to protect
against infectious diseases. To trigger an immune
response, many vaccines put a weakened or
inactivated germ into our bodies. Not mRNA
vaccines. Instead, they teach our cells how to
make a protein—or even just a piece of a
protein—that triggers an immune response inside
our bodies. That immune response, which produces
antibodies, is what protects us from getting
infected if the real virus enters our bodies.

Dr Merrit is correct that the US is not making traditional vaccines for COVID-19, but …

She is correct about US-developed vaccines. But companies in the rest of the world are developing such vaccines, as she surely knows:

Live-attenuated vaccines based on SARS-CoV-2 are
still undergoing preclinical testing, developed by
start-up Codagenix and the Serum Institute of
India.

Dr Merrit is wrong that the US is not making anti-viral agents to combat COVID-19

“We need to take back our world from the virology bad boys…” - “They could come out with something else” besides vaccines in her opinion. She recommends Hydroxychloroquine and something else that I can’t make out. But they don’t want it: two plants making Hydroxychloroquine precursors burned down! (I haven’t check this but I think I read about it.) What are the chances?

I don’t know why she believes that no one in the US is doing research on non-vaccine treatments for COVID-19, but she is wrong: just start Googling.

It was just announced today in Raleigh, NC, for example, that a firm that makes COVID-19 treatment remdesivir to add 275 jobs in Wake County. Article is behind a paywall unfortunately.

Does she seriously think that a drug company that invented an effective non-vaccine treatment wouldn’t make a profit?

Dr Merrit doesn’t seem to understand the process of manufacturing and distributing vaccines

Dr Merrit goes full conspiracy theory when she says that vaccines were in warehouses before they were approved by the FDA. Thank goodness they were. It was no secret.

Time matters in a pandemic. Did you know that Bill Gates started building seven vaccine factories in April 2020? He planned to throw 5 of them away and keep the 2 that could make the 2 best vaccines.

This is perhaps the world view driving Dr Merrit’s “understanding”

Dr Merrit goes even fuller conspiracy theory when she says the newer kinds of vaccines being developed in the US are perfect vectors for inserting pathogens into our bodies. Maybe the Chinese plan to use it to kill us all. Or the American left.

I don’t expect my friend to change her mind.

She is already too far gone into her alternative world.

If she reads this thoroughly, she will probably rescript it and believe even more strongly in her deluded world. But do notice how convincing Dr. Merrit is. It takes work and skepticism to realize how she takes real facts and rescripts them into a conspiracy theory. (Not everything she says is a fact, however. She omits and distorts some facts, as pointed out above.)