Is There a Doctor in the Huddle?

I meant to write about ​this a couple weeks ago when the story was reported, but other more-timely news got in the way.  However, since this isn't time-dated, the point of it all is still valid.

The other week, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers – who has been critical of the COVID vaccines -- posted a quip about Travis Kelsey, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, calling him as “Mr. Pfizer,” a jokey reference to the TV ad that Kelsey is doing on behalf of the COVID booster.  Kelsey had a funny response, having to do with the irony of Rodgers working for team whose owner Woody Johnson is an heir of the founder of Johnson & Johnson, who make a COVID vaccine.  And the matter should have ended there.
 
Now, I am not a fan of Aaron Rodgers.  This largely stems from him having long been the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers – the big rivals of the Chicago Bears – and then this year signing with the Jets, perhaps the team I dislike most after the Packers.  But in fairness, it’s not limited to that since Rodgers is fairly vocal about not being a supporter of COVID vaccines and for a long time tried to bury the fact through not-too-coy disingenuousness.
 
And so, although the matter should have ended there after a couple of casual quips, Aaron Rodgers not only chose to keep the matter alive, but also ratchet it up by challenging Kelsey to a debate.  Now, it’s possible (and one dear hopes, likely) he was being light-hearted and didn’t think a debate between two professional football players about COVID vaccines would ever be substantive.  But being Aaron Rodgers, who is a bright guy, but also noted for being a Know-It-All, we can’t rely on that.  But even if so, chiding someone for promoting COVID vaccines and wanting to even have a breezy debate over them suggests that it’s something Aaron Rodgers wants to make a point about.
 
Which is as it should be since, after all, Aaron Rodgers is always my go-to guy when it comes to medical issues…
 
A football-loving friend brought all this to my attention, and thought the exchange was somewhat amusing, even if silly.  I said that I didn’t.  I thought Travis Kelsey did a cute thing with his “Johnson & Johnson” comeback.  But Aaron Rodgers' anti-vax stance from such a high-profile platform has absolutely nothing amusing about it.
 
For starters, if Aaron Rodgers actually wants to debate the efficacy of COVID vaccines -- which not only have likely saved tens of millions of lives, if not in the hundreds of millions worldwide, for all we know, and have proved profoundly safe overall (with a known disclaimer about an exceedingly tiny group of people who should avoid them, which is the case with many, if not most drugs...including aspirin) after two years and billions of doses, continually studied…even if you are a conspiratorialist and choose to believe stories about adverse reactions – then he should debate Rachelle Walensky, head of the CDC, or the U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy, or Dr. Peter Hotez who shared the Nobel Prize for co-inventing an inexpensive, patent-free COVID vaccine, or Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Rather than an NFL tight end.
 
But mainly, my lack of finding amusement in the exchange is my disdain for the anti-vaccine community.  Indeed, overwhelmingly worse than Aaron Rodgers are people like Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who recently advised people of his state, including the vast number of elderly, not to take the new booster.
 
“Personal choice!!” has long been the cry of such people.  But “personal choice” is a disingenuous catchphrase since it’s become clear that most anti-vaxxers don’t even believe in it, attacking and ridiculing people now, as they do, for their personal choice to get a COVID vaccine.  One would think that if you really, truly believed in the concept of “personal choice” you’d embrace those who use their personal choice, whatever it is.
 
(And it’s worse than just that.  Anti-vaxxers have taken to stalking Nobel-winner Dr. Hotez – who gives away all profits to the life-saving vaccine he created -- to the point where a few weeks ago he posted a photo where bomb-sniffing dogs had to be brought into the hall where he had been invited to give a lecture.)
 
But much more than that, “personal choices” as a standard to march under is an empty banner since pretty much everything in life is a “personal choice.”  Deciding whether or not to ever get out of bed in the morning is a personal choice.  What toothpaste to use is a personal choice.  It’s a personal choice if you want to jump off a bridge.  Or go live the forest for years.  A “personal choice” is really only truly personal when the decision largely affects only you.  If you want to go off by yourself and live in a forest cave alone, that is a "personal choice." With an infectious disease, where others can conceivably get sick and even die if you are infected with COVID and just cough on them or even merely shake their hand, “personal choice” goes out the window and the decision becomes one of Social Responsibility.
 
If you choose not to get vaccinated, you risk infecting someone totally innocent of your choice.  And that person in turns risks infecting others – and others – and the number grows geometrically.  And some of these people, if not many may be older and have lower immunities and risk getting seriously ill…or dying.  Not through their choice, but yours.
 
Further, it is this “personal choice” that has kept the coronavirus not only alive and spreading – requiring the very need for the boosters...every year – but allow the virus to mutate, which can evade the vaccines, require ongoing research to keep ahead of it.  Or just catch up.
 
So, no, I don’t find Dr. Medicine Aaron Rodgers’ snarky “quips” about letting people know a new booster is available to help save lives and control a pandemic – and wanting to debate it with another football player (whether serious or a light diversion) – even remotely amusing. In fact, it speaks loudly to his cavalier lack of understanding of the deadly nature of an infectious disease.  Nor do I find anything supportive about people who shirk social responsibility out of selfishness that keeps the world at deadly infectious risk and even attack others for living up to a normal societal standard.
 
And the politicians who still deny their own sworn obligation to keep the people they represent safe by demeaning social responsibility sit in the highest realm of Hell.