Chairman of the Stiko
Vaccination Commission reacts to Joshua Kimmich: “He is an expert on football, not vaccination!”
FC Bayern star Joshua Kimmich thoughtfully on the lawn of the Allianz Arena on Sunday in the 4-0 win against TSG Hoffenheim
© MIS // Imago Images
Thomas Mertens has rejected the concerns of national soccer player Joshua Kimmich. Nevertheless, according to the chairman of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), Kimmich expressed his concerns about a problem.
The chairman of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), Thomas Mertens, has rejected the concerns of national soccer player Joshua Kimmich because of the lack of long-term studies on vaccines. “Joshua Kimmich is certainly a recognized expert in matters of football, but not an expert in matters of vaccination and vaccines. Nevertheless, his concerns expressed a problem that is certainly seen in this way by some people in our society,” said Mertens in an interview with the German Press Agency.
Stiko criticizes Joshua Kimmich’s statement about long-term studies
Bayern professional Kimmich admitted on Saturday that he had not yet been vaccinated against Corona. He has “a few personal concerns, especially about the lack of long-term studies”.
When a vaccine is released for use in humans, there are accompanying studies that carefully examine whether there could be serious side effects when using it, replied Mertens. “You have to consider that seven billion doses of people have now been vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccine,” he said. “It is clear that there can be no ten-year observational studies when a vaccine is used for almost a year.” This applies not only to every other vaccine that is used for the first time, but also to every new drug.
Long-term side effects are “extremely rare”
“In addition to the approval studies, we know from the accompanying studies that there were only a few side effects, all of which occurred quite a short time after the vaccination,” said the Stiko boss. There is a consensus in science that side effects occurring late after a vaccination “do not occur or were an extremely rare rarity with individual vaccines”.
See in this video: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge puts a lot of pressure on Joshua Kimmich because he is not vaccinated. The former Bayern boss is pretty sure that the Bayern professional will soon be vaccinated.