As Israel moves ahead with fourth COVID shot, scientists told the New York Times the additional booster may cause more harm than good.
Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender’s Top News of the Day. It’s free.
COVID-19 booster shots could do more harm than good, according to scientists interviewed late last month by The New York Times.
The scientists warned “that too many shots might actually harm the body’s ability to fight COVID” and “might cause a sort of immune system fatigue.”
On Monday, Israeli authorities began offering anyone over age 60 a chance to get a fourth shot, or second booster of the COVID vaccine.
But scientists told The Times, before Israel confirmed it would offer the fourth shot, the science is not yet settled on using an additional booster shot to combat the new Omicron variant.
There is one official report of an Israeli dying from Omicron. However, according to The Times of Israel, it is unclear that Omicron caused the death of the individual — a man in his 60s hospitalized weeks earlier from a pre-existing condition.
A new report from the UK Health Security Agency showed booster doses are less effective against Omicron than previous variants, and their effectiveness wears off in only 10 weeks.
Professor Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist and chairman of Israel’s Association of Public Health Physicians, told The New York Times there’s no published scientific evidence a fourth shot is needed to prevent severe illness from Omicron.
“Before giving a fourth shot, it is preferable to wait for the science,” Levine said.
Benny Muchawsky, an architect based in Israel, told The Times the push to administer boosters for the Omicron variant “seemed like hysteria.”
“Israel is the laboratory for the coronavirus vaccine,” Muchawsky said.
Dr. Robert Malone echoed during an interview with Joe Rogan:
“These days the country’s name is actually ‘Pfizreal.’ It’s no longer Israel. Their government has a financial deal with Pfizer and they only have the Pfizer vaccine.”
Malone told Rogan the scientific data points to booster doses doing more harm than good.
Citing data from Denmark, he told Rogan there seems to be “negative efficacy in correlation with increased doses” meaning the more doses or boosters an individual receives, the higher chance they’ll be infected.
