By Caroline Pailliez
L’HOPITAL, France (Reuters) – Fabienne Garbo’s father suffers from a disease similar to Alzheimer’s and was eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as France started vaccinating home residents. But she did not sign the consent form.
Claude Garbo, 86, often fails to recognize his daughter and struggles to talk, sometimes reacting to German words after a life spent mainly in eastern Lorraine, France.
He is unable to transmit whether he wants to be vaccinated against a disease that has killed more than 22,000 residents of nursing homes in France – almost a third of all deaths. Therefore, his daughter Fabienne decided for him.
She told Reuters that the development of coronavirus vaccines has been hastened by major pharmaceutical companies and can do more harm than good, with many unanswered questions about potential side effects and their effectiveness against new variants.
“I prefer to be cautious and protect my father, rather than giving him a vaccine about which we still know little,” said Garbo. “He is at risk of getting the virus, but it would be like any other disease.”
Although France wants injections faster than manufacturers and the state can supply them, the initial launch of the vaccine has been mired in bureaucracy and costly processes designed to reassure a dubious audience.
Refusal rates in nursing homes are around 10%, according to the federation of nursing homes FEHAP. But the inability to vaccinate all residents risks delaying the lifting of strict restrictions on outside visits and social interactions between residents.
Citizens must give their consent to a doctor before being vaccinated against the coronavirus. A family member or legal guardian must do so for those who cannot.
Fabienne Garbo said he had little faith in a conventional medical establishment that scared the public and was very close to pharmaceutical companies.
“Aren’t we going into deep paranoia because of this virus?” she asked.
‘PROBLEM FOR CONSCIOUSNESS’
The World Health Organization emphasized the importance of rigorous checks on vaccine efficacy and safety.
Based on published vaccine trial data generated so far by Moderna, the BioNTech-Pfizer and AstraZeneca partnership, the side effects were not serious or lasting.
Supporters of the vaccine for nursing home residents say it not only protects some of the most vulnerable from becoming ill with COVID-19, but also allows them to be embraced by loved ones again and socially engage with others.
Families that refused COVID-19 injections to a relative with dementia often did so because of their own prejudices, said Louis Matias, a representative of the FEHAP federation.
This raised questions about how those who were not vaccinated would be cared for in the coming months, including whether they should be segregated and denied access to visitors when houses were reopened, he said.
“This will be a problem. A problem of organization and a problem of conscience,” he said.
Doctors say the separation from the family and lack of physical contact are affecting the elderly.
Garbo said she and her mother often disagreed about the safety of the vaccine after her mother fell ill after a flu shot. But on that occasion, she convinced her mother that it was right to refuse the vaccine.
Asked what her father would have done, Garbo replied, “He would listen to the doctor. I didn’t have a chance to ask him.”
(Reporting by Caroline Pailliez; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Mike Collett-White)