Welcome to parenting with the pros and cons. I'm one of the pros. I'm Dr. Molly OShea. And I'm the other Pro. I'm Cinzia Filipovski. And today we're going to be talking about the COVID vaccine for kids, the pros and the cons. First, a little bit about us. I'm Dr. Molly, and I'm a pediatrician who has been in practice for almost 30 years. I've also been an active men member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, both locally, and at the national level. as both a journal editor and a speaker, I've raised four kids who are in their 20s. Now, one with special needs. I love talking to parents, and about their parenting pros and cons.

And I'm Cinzia Filiopovski. I'm a certified positive discipline educator, a full time working mother of five year old twin boys. And I own a medical office management company, as well as several other businesses. You could say I'm a pretty busy mom, I'm balancing my life and like you, I'm parenting with the pros and cons of life. So let's get into it. Today, let's talk about all of our concerns and myths and realities around the COVID vaccine. So today is April 21 2021. I want to preface this whole podcast with that date because this is an evolving subject. And information is just coming up every day. And we just want to make sure that this infant, you understand that this information is current as of today's date. So Johnson and Johnson vaccine, as we all know, the CDC put a pause on it. So let's talk about what that means. You know, we're we've all heard about it in the news, we've heard about how it's could cause blood clots and people. And that's a concern, right? So we want to we want to talk about that and talk about the reality of what that means. So Dr. Molly, can you talk to us a little bit about, you know, blood clots in Johnson and Johnson and the reality of it?

Yeah, so the j&j vaccine, which just took so that we're all on the same page, that was the last vaccine that was approved for use by the FDA. It's the one that's approved for people 18 and older, and it's the one shot and you're done vaccine. So the concern that has arisen with the j&j vaccine is that six people, since the vaccine has been given to 7 million people have had problems with blood clots. One person died as a result of those blood clots. That's a pretty was right there. Yeah. Yeah, mine. Sure. Let's talk about those numbers. Because, you know, we're watching this vaccine, all of the vaccines so carefully. So all of these issues that come up seem so alarming to us. But let's talk about six people in 7 million. And what that compares to I saw some other statistics that I just wanted to throw in there, I saw that birth control pills, for example, can cause 500 to 1200 cases of blood costs in 1 million. So that's 500 to 1200 versus six, or one 1 million, I should say, Sorry, one in 1 million. So that's what that equates to the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. So to compare that the other statistic I saw was COVID. itself, the illness causes 165,000 cases in 1 million of blood clots. So that's a 16 and a half percent chance. So just putting that in perspective, I don't know if you want to elaborate a little bit more on that, so that we can really just understand, you know, how careful the CDC is being with these vaccines at this time? Yeah, I love that, that we can put it in perspective, I think sometimes when, when we do hear about risk, one of the things that happens is we really blow it out of proportion. And we get super worried about something that where the risk is very, very small. I think there's been so much worry around the COVID vaccine anyway, because there has been so much worry around vaccines in general, that this took on a huge proportion, you know, that it may not have needed to, I think that the data you share ciencia, which is good data, that birth control pills, for example, that teenagers and women have taken for a long, long time have a dramatically higher risk of creating blood clots than the vaccine does. And that obviously COVID disease In which the vaccine would prevent you, by and large from getting has much greater risk than the vaccine does, makes us put it in a different perspective. But that leads us then to say, Okay, then, you know, but those are different. This is something I'm perv per, you know, making a decision to inject in my body, you know, should I really take this this extra risk. And I think that the risk now of actually getting COVID is significantly higher than the risk of getting that complication from the vaccine itself, especially with the variants both the South African and British variant that are in circulation now, throughout the United States, which are significantly more contagious and the British variant which causes somewhat more severe disease, especially in younger people, it is a higher risk than the risk of the vaccination. The FDA did the right thing, by putting the vaccine on pause. They put it on pause for a week initially to see would there be an increase in accumulation of more cases, since the vaccine had already been administered to so many people? Or would it really stay the same or deem or diminish, and so the vaccine may indeed be available. Again, maybe by the time this podcast is available, you know, for you to hear. And if it is made available, again, it means that the vaccine is safe for you to receive the risk of the blood clots is so low, lower than the risk of getting struck by lightning, dramatically lower than the risk of taking birth control pills, and certainly dramatically lower than the risk you would have of getting blood clots from COVID that getting the vaccine makes sense. Okay, so now we've we've moved past the idea of the blood clots. But let's talk about some of the other issues that we've heard coming up with the vaccine. I know personally, that there's family members of mine, or friends of mine, that have teenagers, teenage girls to be specific, that they're concerned about fertility issues in the future. That's been circulating a lot about the the chances that these vaccines might hurt our children's for to fertility in the future. What What do you know about that? And what can we what we what can be said about that? Yeah, that's been that's been a question that's been asked a lot. And it's for boys, too, the concerns been for both genders. There's been a concern about women who are thinking about or undergoing fertility treatments now, and concerns for women in particular, but both genders from now and going into the future, both the World Health Organization who originally had left that question open, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, have both answered that question now and have said it is indeed safe, and will not affect fertility. And the reason they have been able to say that is not just wishful thinking. It's not just to quiet the people down and tell them to get the vaccine. It's because the number of women who have successfully become pregnant, while after having received the vaccine is no different than had occurred prior to vaccine availability. So had the vaccine had an effect on fertility, women who were receiving fertility treatments, and women who were going through the process of becoming pregnant the old fashioned way, what they would have seen a shift in pregnancy numbers, and those numbers haven't changed. So given that there is safety in saying that fertility is not apparently affected by the vaccine. So we understand that with information that we have currently Now, what about in the future, our children are young, we're as parents, we're very concerned about what goes into our kids bodies, you know, everything that they consume, or, you know, anything that there are around radioactive things, you know, we're just always concerned of that everything can be harmful to our children. So how do we know that it's not going to be something that's harmful to them in the future? I think that's a great question. And honestly, we can't answer that question. We have not had COVID Or the vaccine? around long enough to answer that question, what we can say is that the people who have had COVID, we do know, have long term health outcomes already visible as a result of having had COVID, whether you want to call it long haul, COVID, not even counting the deaths, not even counting that inflammatory syndrome, that children are susceptible to, even those who never had symptoms, when they got COVID, to begin with, the one that get makes them very ill and in the ICU, not even counting that let's not even put that in the category list. Although that counts, but let's just talk about the the adults who have had COVID. And then months later, are still suffering from neurologic physiologic and emotional, you know, impairments as a result of COVID disease. So clearly, there are health outcomes that are that are not good. As a result of COVID disease COVID vaccine, we don't seem to have any data to suggest that there are outcome differences following vaccination in the same timeframe that we're looking at. So although I cannot say with certainty, I can say that we do not have yet to see a vaccine that has ever caused long term damage later on, like vaccines if they're going to have effects that are unfavorable, do so in the immediate period.

REpeat that, that was powerful.

There are no there are, there has never been a vaccine that has had a long term, bad effect, something that wasn't visible in the immediate period following vaccination. So just like the j&j vaccine has been paused, because these blood clots have occurred within two weeks of vaccination. There has never been a vaccine, where you look back two years, 10 years, 20 years down the road and say, Wow, that was from the vaccine. back then. So long term effects that are negative from vaccination have yet to be ever seen. So COVID vaccine would be no different. It's not a new technology. It's a it's a vaccine technology that has been used. So there's no reason to believe that this would be different. So let's talk about COVID right now, as is has not been as harmful to children, we see that a lot of kids are getting sick, they're getting ill with COVID. But they're fine. They have no, no problem. Some of them are even symptom free. If it's okay for our kids, too. Or I shouldn't say if it's okay, I should say if they are faring so well with the illness, why bother getting them vaccinated? You know, what, what do we? What's the point of that? If they're a great question? You know, this was the same question that I was asked a lot when the chickenpox vaccine came out. Most kids do great with chickenpox, right? So why bother getting the vaccine? And the reason is, is that most kids will do okay, with COVID, I'll be honest, and most kids are not going to have the serious illness around COVID, whether it's immediately at the time of COVID, or the inflammatory mhsc complications from COVID. Most will not. So the reason to get vaccinated is, first of all, to develop immunity for the mutating strains, the ones like the one in Brazil, which were thankfully only beginning to see here in the United States, which seems to cause much more severe illness in children. And so having some immunity on board is somewhat protective. It's helpful, obviously, for the community at large to have your child vaccinated, but a lot of parents feel like listen, I love the community. I'm all about the community, but I don't necessarily want to, you know, put my child through a vaccination to protect you, you know, so the final answer is that you don't know if your child is going to be that one in whatever the number is going to be that one in 500 or that one In 200 child who is going to have severe disease, and if it is severe disease, it's deadly. It's not like, you know, just in the hospital for a week, you're in really rough shape. And because COVID isn't only causing that severe, you know, very serious disease in compromised children, it's also causing it in perfectly healthy children. That's a big dice roll as a parent to decide, I'm not going to vaccinate and really take my chances. So what about the fact that this vaccine is so new? I mean, have they really been able to test it enough for us to be confident in it? You know, it's been around for less than a year, people are just now getting it. I, you know, I hear a lot of parents concerned with the idea of not wanting to be the guinea pigs, we're just gonna wait and see. What What can you say about that? Dr. Molly, I was super skeptical myself. I mean, I'll be perfectly honest with you. When when it became clear to me that this, that the vaccine was going to be manufactured, tested and available in such a short timeframe. I was very hesitant myself as a even as a physician, you know, who's been around a long time, and understands the value that vaccination provides for all of us. But the more I came to understand that what allowed the timeframe to be compressed, was the fact that the the people who are doing the studies around it did not have to wait a year or more for their grant money to be approved, so that they could do the next step in their research trial, that that money was just available immediately available immediately. The timeline was on step that no, no shortcuts were taken at any one step in the timeline, that that part, every step was fully taken. There was no shortcut at any point, the thing that allowed it to be done so quickly, was that there was no waiting for, you know, the bureau bureaucratic approval process to take place, right or made money, right. And then in the end, when approval needed to happen, I think there was frustration at times, because the FDA, for example, didn't just meet and do it overnight, it took a week or two, they really did review the information, they asked questions, they gathered more information, and went forward. So you know, other countries, it was done more quickly, honestly, because the review process was done a little a little faster, honestly. So I felt after understanding it, inside and out that this was a complete process. There was nothing shortened in the sense of the rigor of it, the only thing that was shortened was the bureaucracy of it. So I am completely confident, frankly, in the information about the vaccine about it safety, and it's about its effectiveness. And I think the FDA has since shown its, you know, diligence in having pause the J and J vaccine over what was frankly, a tiny, teeny tiny number of, you know, cases of question, in order to ensure our safety. Putting on my medical management hat for a moment, I just want to pipe in here. I have to agree with what you just said, because before this vaccine came out, I participated in many of the meeting some with some military branches of the US as speakers, and there was a lot of behind the scenes discussion about how the rollout of this vaccine was going to happen way back in October, November and December, to prepare us as medical offices and such. And that was one of the biggest things that they stressed was the money was available every step of the way. The administration at the top of the of the United States, just released all the money inside whatever you need. It's here make it happen. And for that to happen, quite honestly, I don't think that ever happens. You know, it makes me wonder what else could we achieve? If that happened in that way? I can only imagine how many diseases we could be rid of. But that's really the reality. I, you know, participated myself in a lot of those meetings and that too, is what made me as a parent I really want to get the vaccine after that, after I really learned how that worked. And also the scrutiny that is happening, we have to imagine everybody's eyes are on the SEC seeing these all of these vaccines right now. So every little thing that comes out, we're all watching, we all are trying to see what's going on. And those, you know, six cases in 7 million, as we talked about, it's just so small. But you know, another thing to just kind of compare, I read a statistic, one in 500,000, is your chance of getting hit by lightning, you have a greater chance of getting hit by lightning than the blood clots in the vaccine. So, so now that we've gone through those issues, let's talk about, you know, what about those people that have gotten COVID? You know, so we've gotten COVID? Don't we have some of, you know, our own immunity against this virus? How does that work? Dr. Molly? Well, you do you do have immunity against the strain of COVID. You had, okay. So it's kind of like influenza. So influenza comes each year, and there are several strains in the community floating around. And if when you get influenza, you get immunity to that yours strain, the one you got. All right. Right now with COVID, there are several circulating strains, right? There's the original COVID, there's the Europe or the British strain, there's the South African strain, and there's the Brazilian strain. And there are other other minor mutations as well. So there are other variations that just, you know, they're called the orphan strains, because nobody talks about them. So whatever strain you got, you do have immunity to it. And Hooray, and that immunity will provide you partial suit of armor against all the other strains that are circulating, but not a full suit of armor. So right now, it is recommended and an encourage that even though you have had COVID and got through it, that you receive a vaccine that you still get a vaccine, because it will enhance your immunity and likely cover against a different variations, different strain variation, then you may have had. So what isn't as clear, and there's still data out there. I mean, obviously, the j&j isn't one vaccine in any way. There is there are ongoing studies to determine if you really do need to, or if one would be enough for you having had COVID before, for right now the recommendation still is to get the two two vaccine deal, you can get that vaccine, as soon as you have completed your 10 days of isolation. So it used to be you had to wait 90 days before you could get your vaccine that now has changed. So as soon as you have completed your 10 days of illness period, you can get that vaccine your first dose. And finally, let's talk a little bit about the efficacy of the vaccines. You know, at first we heard Pfizer and Madonna were in the 90s 95% efficacy. The j&j vaccine came in at 76%. And I know some people thought, you know, does that mean that one is better than the other? Should I be holding out to get a different vaccine? If it's not available at my local health department? What can you tell us about those efficacy numbers? So first, I think it's important to understand what 95% means. Okay, so if a vaccine is 95% effective in this case, it doesn't mean that you have only a 5% chance of getting COVID. Alright, so let me repeat that, it does not mean that you only have a 5% chance of getting COVID it means that compared to everybody else, you have you have a 95% less chance of getting covered. So let's say the chance of getting COVID in your area is 70%. Well, then your chance of getting COVID is 95% less than 70%. Okay, so it's a little tricky. It's a lot of math. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and do the math for you. But it gets calculator out. Right, exactly. Right, ma'am. Math in everyday life. I think nobody wants to do that. So, but I will say that, it's that's how you have to think about it. So it's not that you have only a 5% chance of getting COVID it's that you have a 95% chance, less chance of getting it then the community rate. Okay. It's tricky that way. Now, the j&j vaccine was tested at a time when there were other variants. Also, it was worldwide tested, was tested with the British variant with the South African variant. And so its efficacy reflects the fact that it There were all those other variants. And so the Pfizer and maternal vaccines, which were tested when the original strain was really the only one in dominant circulation. If if they had been tested, when all the others were around, they are likely to have come out the same. So they are really about equally efficacious. They're equally good in that way. And, and they're both going to dramatically reduce your risk compared to other people who are unvaccinated in your community. And even if that risk isn't zero, it dramatically reduces your risk of severe disease and of death. So the vaccine is worth it. It is, in some ways, like the flu vaccine, you can, you may still get COVID, there are several 100 cases now of people who've received the vaccine and still got an COVID following vaccination, but the cases are mild, they are not life threatening. And so it is still worth it to get the vaccine, because you will prevent severe illness and death. So to sum it all up, basically, you've heard it from our professional, Dr. Molly, that the vaccine is very effective, it's safe. And bottom line getting COVID is much worse. So definitely get your vaccine, if you will, or whenever you can, right? Yes, yes, you know, right now there are studies going on, for kids down to age 12. I expect by the fall, that vaccine will be available down to age 12. And then the five to 12 year olds will be the next group for whom it'll be approved and then down to age two, and then down to six months, those are the groups that come along. And you can trust that the that the the children recruited or volunteered into these studies are are diverse in their ethnicities, and in gender distribution. So it you will have a very good sense of safety. Safety is done first efficacy is done second, so it will be a clear answer about about that by the time the vaccine is approved for your child's age group. At that point, you can obviously continue to have conversations with your pediatrician and talk about for your individual child circumstances around your child's health and wellness regarding the vaccine. But if I were to make a blanket statement, getting the vaccine for your child makes sense. And I can't stress that enough. Please talk to your own physician or pediatrician with whatever vaccine questions you might have or COVID questions quite honestly. So you know, that wraps it up for us. Thank you for listening to today's episode. We you can reach us at parenting with the pros and cons comm we'd love to hear your feedback about today's episodes, any of our other episodes. Whatever you might be wanting to hear us talk about any concerns you might have that we can talk about. You can also find us at Dr. Molly OShea calm and on Instagram, Dr. Molly OShea. So tune in next time in the conversation and remember, parenting should be joyful. So look for the pros and cons and find that joy. Thank you for joining us and see you next time.