NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins Pleads With Americans on Vaccines: Look at the Facts Instead of Conspiracy Theories

NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins spoke with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday as the first batch of U.S. vaccines started being shipped.

One issue in the vaccine rollout is the fact that a lot of people either don’t want to take it or are spreading conspiracy theories about the vaccine.

Todd asked Collins about one survey finding that even a remarkable number of health care workers in Miami were “not interested” in taking the vaccine.

“If we can’t get to 70 percent penetration with health care workers, Dr. Collins, we have a real hurdle in front of us to convince people to take this, do we not?” he asked.

Collins agreed and said, “This is a source of great concern for all of us.”

He pled to Americans to understand that the data is out there, the vaccines are being thoroughly vetted, and that getting vaccinated is critically important:

“I think all reasonable people, if they had the chance to sort of put the noise aside and disregard all those terrible conspiracy theories, would look at this and say, ‘I want this for my family. I want it for myself.’ People are dying right now. How could you possibly say ‘let’s wait and see’ if that might mean some terrible tragedy is going to befall? And especially for health care providers. Please, people. When you look back in a year and you say to yourself, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ I hope you’ll be able to say, ‘Yes, because I looked at the evidence.'”

Collins also addressed skepticism over the speed at which the vaccine was produced, combined with the public pressure President Donald Trump put on the FDA.

He again emphasized that there has been a serious level of scrutiny by the nation’s top scientists and said all this noise that’s been going around “did not determine the outcome” of the approval process.

“This was based upon scientific decision making of the most rigorous sort. I’m part of that. I’m talking out of knowledge of having been totally immersed in this 100 hours a week since last January,” He said.

You can watch above, via NBC.