We All Know a Trent

What to say when someone blames your vaccines, and how to say it better than I did

Last week, my body staged what I can only describe as a full-scale revolt. Without getting into every detail, I’ll say this: a bizarre histamine reaction, chest pain, shortness of breath, a racing heart, brain fog, and a host of other things that pointed toward some kind of immune dysfunction. I ended up in the emergency room. Piecing things together with my doctors, it looks like getting COVID and flu B back-to-back over about six weeks did not agree with my immune system.

A friend put it simply when I described what happened: “It sounds like your body basically got a double-dose of cytokine storms — either one on its own is a lot, and the inflammation just triggered all sorts of weird reactions.” That makes sense. Viral illnesses hammer the immune system to begin with. But when you’re already inflamed from one infection, a second one doesn’t give you much runway to recover, and the effects can compound.

I’m a wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve kinda gal, which means I shared some of what was happening on my private social media stories — a little in real time, and then more once I got home. The response was overwhelming in the best way. Friends checked in, neighbors dropped off food, and more than a few messages made me feel so very loved and supported.

Nestled in all of that warmth was a message from an acquaintance — let’s call him Trent (pseudonym). Trent is a smart and successful guy. Finance world. He funds biomedical companies working on cancer and autoimmune research. All of that to say that he’s not someone I’d expect to slide into my DMs with vaccine skepticism.

But that's exactly what happened. And the reason I'm writing about it isn't to embarrass or shame him.

I actually think Trent’s skepticism comes from a real place. He has a young child who experienced an adverse event following vaccination. That kind of experience doesn’t just leave you; it shapes how you see everything that comes after. I get that.

We were never close friends, but Trent and I do have history. We were childhood classmates and grew up in the same neighborhood, which meant I went into the exchange thinking we had enough rapport to actually talk it through. I may have overestimated that. Without going into details, we have sparred before — over science, over politics, over what has become increasingly clear is a fundamental difference in how we see the world.

His opening question was: “But weren’t you fully vaccinated? So, how did this happen?

It’s actually a fair question, and one that genuinely curious people have when someone they know gets sick despite being vaccinated (don’t worry, I’ll address that later on).

But it was delivered with what became very obvious, sarcastic energy as things unfolded. Trent wasn’t asking a question. He wasn’t looking for an answer. He was starting an argument. And it kept going even as I tried to redirect, even as I sent him literature, even as I pointed out more than once that the evidence didn’t support what he was suggesting. I held my own. But I also did what I often advise against: I went straight to the data. I information-dumped. The deficit model — the idea that if you just give people enough facts, they’ll come around — is something I warn against constantly. It doesn’t work, especially when someone’s skepticism is rooted in something personal. I knew that going in. I did it anyway. (Blame it on feeling crappy, and a brain fog I can’t quite put into words.)

Regardless of how I felt in that moment, we’re all human, and it’s hard to avoid the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve mindset. So… I went there.

I wish I had acknowledged the human part of it first — something like: I know you’ve been through something really awful with your child, and I understand why that shapes how you read all of this and view my experience. I’m not here to lecture you, but if it’s helpful, I can explain why I’m confident that what happened to me is due to the viruses, not the vaccines. Connection before correction. It’s what I preach… but that day, exhausted after hours of fear and uncertainty, I didn’t practice it.

Whether that would have landed with Trent, I honestly don’t know, and that’s why the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve game is a dangerous one to play. If I am being totally honest, I doubt it would have, due to the veracity of his vaccine skepticism. But I still think it would have been a more inviting approach. For someone sitting in a less entrenched place, more curious than convinced, it might have made all the difference.

For what it’s worth, the substance of what I said wasn’t wrong. The delivery was. So if you find yourself in a similar conversation (after you’ve led with the human part), the evidence is worth knowing. Let’s discuss...

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“But weren’t you fully vaccinated? How could this happen?”

Underneath this question (no matter how it’s intended) is an assumption that vaccines equal immunity, immunity equals a shield, and getting sick means the shield failed.

But vaccines are not impenetrable shields. They are probability adjusters. For respiratory viruses in particular (which mutate rapidly and circulate in ever-changing forms), the goal was never to prevent every infection. It’s reducing the likelihood that an infection becomes severe, requires hospitalization, or kills you. Those are not the same thing, and confusing those endpoints has caused unnecessary confusion and, frankly, a loss of trust.

I’m going to use the flu vaccine as an example, because this season’s data illustrates my point in a counterintuitive way. The dominant strain this flu season was an antigenically drifted H3N2 — so the vaccine didn’t match as well as hoped. Objectively, it was a tough year. And yet, interim data showed vaccination was associated with a 38-41% reduction in hospitalization among children, and roughly 30% protection against hospitalization in adults. Those numbers aren’t grades on a test. A 30% reduction means that for every 10 unvaccinated people who would otherwise have been hospitalized, vaccination prevented 3 of those hospitalizations. Across millions of people, that’s a huge number of hospital stays avoided. And that is in a mismatched year, with a drifted strain and a virus that didn’t cooperate. The vaccine still kept people out of the hospital at a meaningful rate.

COVID vaccines tell a similar story. A large NEJM study of U.S. veterans found that the updated 2024-25 formulation was associated with approximately 39% effectiveness against hospitalization and 64% effectiveness against COVID-associated death in a predominantly older male population, though protection was consistent across younger and older age groups. It’s easy to assume a vaccine doesn’t work well if it doesn’t prevent infection, and there’s some truth to that. The MMR vaccine, for example, is about 98% effective at preventing infection, which in turn prevents the severe outcomes associated with measles and rubella. But for pathogens like the flu and SARS-CoV-2, which constantly mutate, preventing infection is a moving target and isn’t the only endpoint that matters. A preprint article (not yet peer-reviewed, so the data are still preliminary) in the same veteran population suggests that the 2025-26 formulation was about 57% effective at preventing ER/urgent care visits, similar to the previous year’s effectiveness.

So yes, I did receive both vaccines in the fall. They may well be part of why I’m back home writing this. I’ll never know that for certain — and that’s exactly the point. Individual outcomes can’t tell us what population-level data can. I’m one person, with my own medical history, my own baseline health, my own immune system’s particular tendencies. Personal anecdotes are powerful. They’re also a sample size of one. Across large populations, consistently, vaccinated people fare better. That doesn’t change because I had a rough week.

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“The vaccines caused what you’re blaming on the virus(es).”

Armed with a CDC snippet he’d Googled, Trent suggested my symptoms were more likely side effects from the vaccine than a consequence of two back-to-back viral infections.

Let me start with something I’ve said many times and will keep saying: mRNA vaccines have a documented association with myocarditis and pericarditis. This is real, and has been acknowledged, investigated, and communicated by public health agencies. It is not a secret, and it is not nothing.

But the full picture matters enormously, and the full picture is almost the opposite of what Trent was implying.

Myocarditis and pericarditis after viral infection are not a new phenomenon. Cardiac inflammation from infection was described by physicians as far back as 1749, centuries before mRNA technology, COVID-19, or any of the vaccines we’re talking about today even existed. Viral illness is among the most common causes of myocarditis globally, estimated to complicate roughly 1-5% of viral infections, with influenza, enteroviruses, and SARS-CoV-2 all well-documented culprits. The relative risk of myocarditis following SARS-CoV-2 infection specifically has been estimated at roughly 15 times higher than in uninfected people. I had two viral infections. Back to back. Statistically speaking, the most probable explanation for what happened to me isn’t subtle.

The vaccine-associated myocarditis signal, by contrast, is concentrated almost entirely in adolescent and young adult males, primarily within days to weeks of the second dose. I am a woman turning 40 this year — a demographic in which this risk is very low. I also received my vaccines approximately six months before any of this happened, and adverse events following vaccination almost always appear within days to weeks, not months later. Studies comparing vaccine-associated myocarditis to infection-associated myocarditis find that infection cases show higher rates of ICU admission, more serious cardiac involvement, and worse outcomes.

So yes — the vaccine signal is real and worth knowing. It matters for specific populations, particularly young boys. It is part of an honest risk-benefit conversation. While it’s some people’s story, and that’s truly unfortunate, it’s not mine.

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“You keep sticking to scams. As long as it pays the bills.”

He said exactly that.

People who land here usually do so because they’ve lost faith in institutions — sometimes for reasons that are entirely understandable, sometimes because that distrust has been deliberately cultivated by people who benefit from it. Often both at once.

I believe the goal of honest science communication is not to tell people vaccines are perfect. It’s to accurately represent what the evidence shows, including the risks, limitations, and uncertainties. The mRNA vaccine-myocarditis signal is one such example. If Trent’s child experienced a real adverse event after vaccination, that matters. Full stop. It deserves to be taken seriously by clinicians and researchers. Adverse events are real, they are monitored, and pharmacovigilance infrastructure exists precisely because of that. Holding that truth alongside the finding that the weight of evidence across billions of doses supports vaccination, those are not contradictory positions. Both can be true at the same time.

And while I’m truly empathetic about a painful experience, however real, I can’t pretend it overrides what population-level data consistently show. That’s not dismissing anyone’s story. It’s the same standard of evidence I apply to every claim I hear and decision I make.

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Some key takeaways:

• Vaccines have endpoints beyond just preventing you from getting sick, and even then, they are not perfect. But they do shift the odds in your favor — particularly against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Getting sick after vaccination is not evidence that vaccines don’t work.

• Vaccine adverse events are rare but real. For mRNA vaccines and myocarditis and pericarditis, specifically, the signal is concentrated in adolescent and young adult males and typically appears within days to weeks of vaccination — not months later.

• Compounded viral illnesses can seriously dysregulate the immune system. When symptoms overlap with rare vaccine adverse events, timing and clinical context are what help us determine whether viral illness or vaccines are the most likely culprits. In my case, both point squarely toward the viruses.

• Information alone rarely moves someone whose skepticism is rooted in personal experience. Leading with acknowledgment (of their experience and real uncertainties) opens more doors for meaningful dialogue than a data dump ever will. I learned that the hard way.

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My Hope

I probably didn’t change Trent’s mind. For someone whose skepticism runs that deep and is that personal, no scientific paper was going to do it. If I’d led with connection instead of correction, I might at least have left the door open rather than watching it slam shut in my face.

What I hope is that something landed anyway. That somewhere in the exchange, a seed got planted. That the next time he encounters a headline about vaccines and cardiac events, there’s a small voice that says, “But she said the infection risk is higher.“ That’s not nothing.

And maybe a seed got planted for me, too. Not about the science, but about how much a single experience can shape the way someone processes everything that comes after it.

But mostly, I’m thinking about the people who aren’t Trent. The ones sitting in the middle of that spectrum — not entrenched, just uncertain, trying to sort through years of confusing and often contradictory information. Those conversations are worth having. I hope this article helps in some small way to help you navigate them.

Stay curious,

Unbiased Science