What’s in a name?  Would a vaccine by any other name work as well? — By Steve Bond

You walk into a restaurant and order a coke (or maybe diet coke), the server looks at you and says, is “Pepsi ok?”  “No, I won’t take Pepsi” you say and storm out. A bit absurd?  Now replace Coke with Pfizer and Pepsi with Moderna. Oddly, some people are refusing Moderna when Moderna and Pfizer are the same type vaccine.

So why is this?  Many experts believe it has more to do with marketing than medicine. Even though both vaccines use mRNA technology, have almost identical efficacy and side effects, people seem to be more comfortable with the Pfizer name. Pfizer is the company who brought us Viagara® Aricept® and Celebrex®. It’s also not surprising since more people have had a first dose of Pfizer in Ontario. This has little to do with guidelines, but more to do with supply. As supply of Pfizer diminishes and supply of Moderna increases, the opportunity to receive Moderna will increase.

So what about variants?  A recent study from Ontario shows that all three vaccines seem to be effective against the four variants of concern: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. While it’s important that we don’t get too wrapped up in the numbers, the results look like this:

The bottom line: the vaccines work. And a second dose is going to be more effective. Whether your second dose is Pfizer, Moderna or Astra Zeneca, you are doing your part to stop the spread of infection and to keep our emergency departments and ICUs running. Take care of yourselves and each other.