French COVID study showed longterm benefits of vaccine

On Dec. 4, the Journal of the American Medical Association’s online publication reported public health data on the effects of COVID vaccination on 22.7 million French citizens compared to effects on 5.9 million fellow citizens who were unvaccinated. According to the authors, this is the first report on long-term (four year) outcomes.

The French researchers were interested in two primary outcomes: Did the significant positive and protective effect of mRNA vaccines noted in short-term studies continue in the long-term, and, were there unexpected negative outcomes from vaccination? Regarding the latter question, they noted prior studies reporting cardiac and allergic reactions, and wanted to know if these reports translated to problems in larger numbers of people.

The vaccinated vs. unvaccinated groups involved people from 18 to 59 years of age. Vaccinated individuals were older than unvaccinated people, more likely to be female and had more cardiometabolic diagnoses. Despite the age difference and “preexisting conditions,” vaccinated individuals had a 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID, which was similar to the numbers reported in short-term studies. In addition, vaccinated people had an overall 25% lower risk off mortality from any cause of death.

The latter outcome seems counter-intuitive, given that the purpose of vaccination is simply to protect people from the negative effects of a virus. However, the authors speculate that one possible explanation was that protection against any COVID morbidity also translated to protection against “long COVID.” According to the authors “long COVID is a frequently disabling condition that may occur in 10% of individuals with SARSCoV-2 infections, manifesting with more than 200 symptoms affecting multiple organ systems, with long-term consequences for some individuals, including cardiovascular effects.” However, this could not entirely explain the differences in death rates from all causes, they cautioned. They did note some social differences, like economic disadvantages among the unvaccinated that may have been partially explanatory, but admitted that the large data set was not sensitive enough to explain the 25% mortality difference.

As for the second study objective, i.e., data on the incidence of negative effects of vaccination, there were no differences noted. This is significant. Anti-vaccination (COVID, measles, etc) screeds have infected social media sites, and have even infected the brain of our country’s director of Health and Human Services, Robert F.Kennedy Jr. Thanks to research like this, which will sadly have to be conducted in other countries, we can maintain faith in medical research.

I am in my eighth decade of life. I have a mark on my arm from my childhood small pox inoculation. Small pox, thanks to those inoculations, has been eradicated from the globe. When I was 10, I and all of my peers were given the Salk polio vaccine. Some of us were squeamish about getting shots, but none of our parents were squeamish about trotting us down the school auditoriums where the nurses gave us our injections. There was an almost immediate drop in the incidence of polio worldwide, and with the exception of isolated cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it also has been eradicated.

Mark Twain (AKA Samuel Clemens) wrote about a measles epidemic that struck his childhood town in Missouri: “For a time a child died almost every day. The village was paralyzed with fright. Children that were not smitten with the disease were imprisoned in their homes to save them from the infection. In the homes there were no cheerful faces, no noise, no laughter, the family moved spectrally about on tiptoe, in a ghostly hush.” Does anyone doubt how Sam’s parents would have responded if their doctor told them there was a vaccination to prevent measles?

Jeff Mitchell is a retired physician living in Albuquerque.