© REUTERS/Francis MascarenhasA worker removes vials of AstraZeneca's Covishield at a lab at Serum Institute of India, in Pune, India, November 30, 2020.
On Sunday, India officially gave the green light to Covishield, a drug developed by the Pune-based Serum Institute based on the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, as well as Covaxin, created by Indian pharmaceutical Bharat Biotech. The AstraZeneca jab received emergency approval despite Covishield showing at least 62-percent efficacy, a value considerably lower than competing drugs. There have also been concerns raised about Covaxin. Indian MP Shashi Tharoor claimed that the jab has not been properly tested and suggested its approval was premature.
To make matters worse, the head of India's Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, Ashutosh Sinha, told local media that he was concerned that the vaccines "might contain something which can cause harm." He put forward the theory that the jab could be used to "kill/decrease the population" or cause "impotency."
Naturally, such utterances from lawmakers did not help to instill trust in the vaccines, and so Dr. Venugopal G. Somani, the Drug Controller General of India, did his best to reassure the public.
Comment: Unpopular fact: doctors can and do lie to you if they think it's in your best interest. If they think you should wear a mask, they will lie to the public if that means more people will wear masks. Same goes for vaccines. The problem is, why should anyone trust a liar? Even if they profess to have our best interests in mind? What if they're wrong, as they often are? And what if they don't have your best interests in mind, but are simply doing it out of social and political pressure (unpopular fact: doctors are humans too)? Simple solution: don't listen to these lying idiots.