Vaccination Blues: Songs to Convince the Unconvinced

A little less conversation, a little more action.

Are you someone whose trust in vaccines has been damaged by the past three years? Do you have a loved one who refuses to get their regular shots after going down one too many fearful rabbit holes? As a family doc I admit that it’s getting tiresome persuading people that the benefits of vaccination still far outweigh the risks. As I recommend tetanus boosters, pneumonia shots, flu shots, bivalent boosters, shingles vaccines and the like, very often I feel undermined and discounted. Many people have become calcified in their resistance to vaccination, and increasingly I feel like a dentist trying to sell some tooth whitener (which I could use probably), or a practitioner trying to sell some unproven and costly supplement… except that in my case many people don’t want to buy in. And our evidence-based stuff is usually covered by insurance.

So I’m wondering if the following information about vaccines, mixed in with some blues songs, might be worth a try. I was listening to 88.5 WXPN, a local Philadelphia radio station (the best in the country). It was Saturday night during their blues show, and a couple songs came on that made me smile. I wondered if instead of just talking about vaccines, maybe I should replay these blues songs for people? Would it help persuade you or your loved ones to get a jab?

I’m vaccinated and I’m ready for love.

Seriously, just throw up your hands, get up from the examining table, and move with this. Put your hands on your hips. Let your backbone slip. It will loosen your muscles, and facilitate the exposure of your deltoid for a quick shot that will almost certainly help protect you.

~

Vaxed to the max.

Now we’re feeling fine. It’s getting almost soulful in here. Once you break the seal on vaccination again, why not just keep going for it? When was your last tetanus shot anyway? Decades ago perhaps? We’ll even throw in a little diphtheria and pertussis coverage for your protection if you want.

~

F 2020.

A mutual sentiment I’m sure. Our recoil from everything associated with that traumatic year is certainly understandable. I don’t want to order grocery delivery and then wipe everything down ever again. Unfolding chairs to visit loved ones on the front lawn while pretending 40 degree temperatures are ok, is not ok. But let’s take vaccination out of that mess - because it helped us get out of that mess - and helps us stay out of other messes.

Here’s the WXPN playlist for anyone wanting a good mess of blues:

Here is a list of vaccines that science, research, expert consensus, and hard work has afforded us. I’ve taken advantage of every one that I’m eligible for. And so how are we doing, as doctors counseling patients, and as patients being counseled? What do you think of these percentage numbers of people receiving some common shots through 2020?

Pneumonia vaccine: coverage (percentage of people vaccinated) among adults aged ≥65 years was 67.5% (white adults 72.4%, black 50.8%, hispanic 48.1%, and asian 54.9%). Here is the Vaccine Information Sheet (VIS).

Shingles vaccine: including both the old Zostavax and new Shingrix shots, coverage among adults aged ≥50 and ≥60 years was 29.4% and 39.1%, respectively. But if we look at just the Shingrix vaccine, which is much more effective than the old one, coverage drops to just 7.3% among adults aged 50–59 years, and 17.9% among adults aged ≥60 years. Here is the VIS.

Tetanus shots: the proportion of adults aged ≥19 years reporting having received any tetanus toxoid–containing vaccination during the past 10 years was 62.9%. Here is the VIS.

Flu shots in 2023: coverage for all children this year was 55.1%. Pregnant women received a flu shot a rate of 48.9%. National coverage for all adults was 47.4%. Here is the VIS.

I am happy to review the finer details and absolute risks of side effects with patients in the office, and hopefully your doctor is, too. Vaccines are never risk free, and some people have had bad reactions and complications. I have absolutely seen this, albeit very rarely. But all currently approved vaccinations have a much greater chance of benefiting you than harming you. Many people are open to listening to this sort of reasoning, but it can be tedious, confusing, and anxiety provoking. And so just like when life in general gets to be a bit too much, it can feel good to play the blues while listening to words of validation and chords of uplifting commiseration.

And if even that fails to motivate us to give vaccination another chance, there are always posters of cute kids who have bravely trusted their parents, the process, and their pediatricians and family docs. I took my daughter to her doctor this week, and snapped a quick photo of this poster from the Philadelphia Department of Health:

And so I ask you and yours:

Are you vaccinated and ready for love? Are you vaxed… to the max? And do you agree that many things from 2020 should be left behind… but perhaps not our vaccines?