Frequently asked questions answered by an epidemiologist
PROF CHANG: Hello, I'm Curtis Chang. I'm a theologian and former pastor. And we here at Redeeming Babel have produced a series of videos to help Christians think about the vaccine. One of the ways that God helps Christians think is through trusted leaders in our faith and medical community. One such leader is Dr. Emily Smith. Emily is an expert on how diseases like COVID spread and can be prevented. She's a professor at Baylor University and she's been a trusted voice during the pandemic through her widely followed Facebook page. She also happens to be mother of two children and is married to a local pastor. Emily, thank you so much for joining us.
DR. SMITH: Thank you for having me. This is fun.
PROF CHANG: Well, Emily, we start by asking everyone the same question which is, have you been vaccinated?
DR. SMITH: I have, I got J&J about a month and a half ago.
PROF CHANG: And so why did you start the Facebook page and tell us about this page and then why you started it?
DR. SMITH: Yeah Well, I started Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist. I'm a global health epidemiologist at Baylor, and I started back in March when just neighbors and family members started asking me, should we pay attention to this? Should we really buy that much toilet paper? And all those similar questions of what does it mean to flatten the curve? And I was just asked that enough times to think, well maybe I can just be efficient and start a Facebook page. And I named it cause I'm friendly, maybe too much at times, but that's what it is. And then neighbor, because as an epidemiologist, I got into the field because I believe it's the science of the good Samaritan. It's quantifying who is in need and choosing not to walk by. And so that is love thy neighbor. So I thought, friendly and then neighbor and then epidemiologist, that's just who I am. So it started, followed by my mom and a couple of friends and has really taken off.
PROF CHANG: Well, it really has because I've had many people refer to that resource as being super helpful. So because of that, I'm going to ask you a bunch of common questions people have about the vaccine. And the first probably the most common one that many people ask is, were the vaccines rushed into development?
DR. SMITH: These are great questions coming up and we don't have five hours to go over them. So the caveat to that is, all of this information that I will share as an answer 30 seconds per question or so I have Facebook post and really it could take 30 minutes to an hour for each question. So I'm gonna summarize it. If people want the data they can certainly go look. Were they rushed? That answer is no. I think what a lot of people don't realize is when we hit 2020, the mRNA technology had been around for a long time. And so it's almost like if you think of a plane the ramp to get that plane up in the air had been for decades at this point. And then 2020 hit and we really could soar with it quickly. So no, they weren't rushed. And then they went through the proper channels of starting at phase one and then moving to phase two and then moving to phase three or 30, 40,000 people. Those timelines were not skipped at all. They were adhered to very well. So the answer is no, they were not rushed.
PROF CHANG: Okay. The second question that I've seen asked especially among women, is this question, do the vaccines affect fertility?
DR. SMITH: Yeah. Yes, I've gotten that question so much as well. I've looked into it just as a mom to a little girl, we'll talk about that in a minute. But also just, I'm in my 40's and I just turned 40. So a lot of us have this question. The short answer is no, it doesn't affect fertility. There's a lot of misinformation out there about the spike protein that you get from the vaccine is the same spike protein for fertility and in the uterus and placenta, and that's just not true. Our bodies are more awesome than that. They can differentiate between two different spike proteins. So scientists have looked into this issue of, can it actually affect fertility. And biologically there's no plausible way that that could actually happen. So the answer to that is no, thankfully it can't affect it. What I do want to also mention on this question is, natural COVID if you actually get sick, that can impact pregnant women pretty severe. And then we see in men actually that it can affect their fertility, not the vaccines but a real infection looks like it can affect sperm count.
PROF CHANG: Well, that actually leads to my next question which is, suppose someone has already had COVID, some of these folks are feeling like, well I've already had COVID it was no big deal. Why should I get the vaccine? So answer that question, should a person who's already had COVID still get the vaccine?
DR. SMITH: Yeah, you are asking questions that everybody on the page is asking as well. That answer is yes. If you've had COVID you should still get the vaccine. And the reason, it's one of my favorite charts that I've posted on my site, is because if you look at the antibodies produced by natural COVID and the antibodies produced by the second shot of an mRNA, or the first of the J&J shot, it's higher, almost 4, 6, 10 fold higher. So you were getting more protection by getting the vaccine than having natural COVID. We also don't know how long the antibodies that you have after a natural infection last. For a time you're gonna be protected but it looks like those wane. For the vaccines we know that they last at least six months likely longer from what the data shows. So the answer is yes, you should still get it for doubly protected.
PROF CHANG: So these vaccines are new and the safety results on the short term are very good. But what about the long-term? I think that's a concern people have is we don't have long-term, years and years and decades of studies of side effects of the vaccine. How should we think about that risk of long-term side effects of the vaccine?
DR. SMITH: Yeah, that's a great question 'cause you're right, we don't have long-term specifically for these type of vaccines. What makes me feel okay to say that the long-term effects of these vaccines I don't think are going to show up in space as being harmful, is because historically for the vaccines if a side effect or an adverse reaction is gonna show up it will show up within the first couple of weeks and not longer than a few months. So we have enough data in millions of people at this point to kinda see an indication of what long-term effects could or could not be. So I'm not worried about the long-term effects. The mRNA vaccines and the J&J they don't alter your DNA. There's no biological way that that could happen. And so I think the long-term effects are going to be protection, not like an auto-immune disease or something that... That's a lot of conspiracy theories right now.
PROF CHANG: Now recently the FDA approved vaccines for children as young as age 12, I believe. And I think parents are especially worried about giving something new to their children. How would you speak to such a parent that has that kind of worry?
DR. SMITH: Yes. So this is interesting for me 'cause I have a 12 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. So you better believe I'm looking at the data as an epidemiologist to post and to talk about, I'm also looking at it as a mom. And so, these FDA documents are not one that people just read randomly, they're 90 page plus. And I looked through that, I have for all the vaccines, but especially for the kid data of realizing, I do want my child to get it but I want to know for sure about safety and efficacy and long-term effects. And so I looked at it, I poured over that probably more than I should have, but I would just encourage parents that it's a life-saving tool for vulnerable populations. And the kid data in terms of safety and efficacy is fantastic from the trials. And right now it looks like there's about 700,000 children who have gotten vaccinated between 12 to 15 years. So that's a lot of kids who have already gotten it. But I would encourage parents, even though COVID doesn't affect children as much of them getting really sick as much as adults, they can still get quite sick. In fact, in 2020, one of the top 10 reasons for mortality among children was COVID. So we have to weigh that in mind, and we've got a good vaccine that is safe and effective for children.
PROF CHANG: I think that is such a little known fact that COVID was actually a top 10 cause of death of children in 2020. That seems like a really strong reason to consider getting the vaccine for your children. I'm going to ask you to shift gears a little bit here because you study disease on a global scale, but as Americans, I think we can be really prone to just focusing on our own country. So help us think about COVID and the vaccine from a truly global perspective.
DR. SMITH: Yeah, that's such a great question because by nature a pandemic is global, it's not localized. And what is weird and sad, I'm not sure the right word for it is this pandemic has hit every continent, every country, and we are all susceptible to it. That it's what happens after somebody gets infected that matters. And we see that in the US in terms of inequities of, do you have enough money to seek healthcare? Can you take off work to go seek healthcare? Do you live in a multi generational family where, in the small living spaces where it can just spread very easily between kid to mom and dad to grandparents. So that inequity is highlighted even more when we look at the global perspective. And you're right we miss that story as Americans 'cause the pandemic, at least at this point is winding down-ish, we're still in it but it is winding up pretty heavily around the globe. We are at the highest levels of global cases, international cases right now and that doesn't seem to be slowing down in terms of both cases and death rates. And, I was looking at some of the countries I work in, Somaliland and parts of Africa and Latin America, and those mortality rates if you get sick, even for very young people, is astronomically higher than a place like in the US because they're being under counted, they're not making it to care. So to me I think it is a way to love our global neighbors to keep that in mind, that what we do here in the US to keep levels down as much as we can matters. Because that means that mutations don't have as much chance to occur and really affect the world. And I think of, as a mom and a parent if you have to make the choice between seeking healthcare, paying for healthcare for one child, and then food for the rest of the family, that's an impossible situation that families shouldn't have to make. And that is what is happening around the globe. So to keep that in mind, and also I just wanna put in a plug for the WHO has a vaccine equity declaration. We know that high-income countries have gobbled up 80% of vaccines, only 0.4% of vaccines have actually gone to low income countries with the projected timeline of it reaching low income countries by 2023, and that's just too late. That's not tithing, if you will, for vaccines it's also not an offering. So we've got to keep that in mind.
PROF CHANG: Those are really profound statistics on how we have to think as global neighbors on the pandemic. And I wanna ask you, there's a tendency to focus on the difficulties and challenges that the pandemic and the vaccine has presented to Christians, but you've also thought about the opportunities that the pandemic presents to Christian, say a little bit more about that.
DR. SMITH: Yeah And that goes back to how I named Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist of, I knew that COVID was going to be a disease where what I did matter to people and vice versa, how we treated our neighbors how we thought about our neighbors would matter in terms of masking. I also knew, unfortunately that it was going to be unequal, in terms of health access, poverty, along the poverty line, again on that access to care and having to pay for an ER bill. So I've thought at the beginning this is a super unfortunate pandemic, but what a time for the church to show the good Samaritan in real time to our neighbors and not walk by. And I still believe that. I mean, by this point, it's all messy in terms of how we think about masking and precautions and the vaccine. But I still think at the core we still have an opportunity to show the church, the big C church, the grace and power of God. So I'm still hopeful for that. I think vaccines are a way for us to love our neighbors. And also I was thinking this morning, God's not given us a spirit of fear but a power love and a sound mind. And the sound mind portion to me comes with wisdom and discernment of actually looking at the science and the data, not the conspiracy theories around the safety and efficacy of this vaccine. And then to me, it goes back to I have freedom now, but it's not... Once I became a Christian, I lost my individual freedom. My freedom is now aligned to the cross and to allegiance to that. And it makes me think of the verse in Ephesians where everybody is equal at the foot of the cross. But when we don't see that realized in the world and around us, it's our choice as an ambassador now to that equal kingdom, to bring heaven to earth. And a way to do that for me, is to protect and love my neighbors in ways that are pretty selfless, wearing a mask and getting the vaccines. And so I've told people from the beginning, you can be full of faith and pray Psalm 91 over your family but also be full of what Galatians says. If we don't use our freedom against others we use it to serve one another and the whole law can be summed up in one thing, love your neighbor as yourself. So I just believe that so much, and I still think we have a way to do that through vaccines.
PROF CHANG: Well, preach it, Emily. Thank you so much for giving us those really encouraging biblical and medical information that I think is gonna be so helpful to people. It's been a pleasure to have you, and we look forward to sharing more of your wisdom to the world.
DR. SMITH: Thank you for having me. This was a pleasure.