Following the Food and Drug Administration and Center for Disease Control's approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COIVD-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, experts say parents have become the recent victims of misinformation attacks.
Dr. Kabita Patel spoke with MSNBC about the myth that the vaccine is more dangerous than the actual virus itself, a claim that's making the rounds on social media.
"I think this is a game of people kind of using very selective snippets and anecdotes that creates this bias where you hear one person in social media who talks about one really tragic reaction where it's not even clear if it's related to the vaccine," Patel said.
Patel shared that parents have been targeted with misinformation from those against the vaccine, with some claiming side effects are being underreported.
However, Patel shared that side effects are less severe than they were for most adults who have received an mRNA vaccine.
"The truth is that over 3,000 children that were in the trials for this vaccine had no serious adverse [effects]," Patel shared with MSNBC.
She added that those who are above 12 that have gotten the shot have also not seen any major effects and that the only effect kids under 12 have experienced is pain where they got the shot.
"Not even the fever or chills that I got when I got my mRNA vaccine, and that's likely because of the reduced dose," Patel said to MSNBC.
Patel shared that she has had parents in vaccine clinics say that they have "a friend" who had a bad reaction to the shot, so they don't want to get it.
A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that as of Oct. 26, 2021, 53% of parents worried that their child may be required to get the vaccine against their will, 51% worry about missing work for vaccinations, and 48% worry about not being able to get the vaccine from a trusted place.
As of now, 58.4% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against the virus, with 68% having received at least one dose.
