Sound cars with anti-vaccination message are seized in Novo Hamburgo (RS)

Complaints from residents of the city of Novo Hamburgo (RS), 44 km from Porto Alegre, led the Municipal Guard to seize two sound cars last Wednesday (26). Vehicles circulated questioning children’s vaccination against Covid.

With a 44-second recording, the cars traveled through neighborhoods of the municipality of 247,000 inhabitants heading to their parents.

“Attention, parents. We all have a duty to know that the experimental vaccine is not mandatory in our children; that, by law, schools cannot demand, much less prevent our children from accessing classrooms for not having done so. the vaccine; that the manufacturers do not guarantee the effectiveness and are not responsible for the side effects as many have had post-vaccine problems. It’s your choice, father. .

The prefecture classified the message as fake news and said it would present a crime news to the state Public Ministry – the Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigative procedure and asked for more information about the episode.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to go through this in the 21st century. Fake news on social media wasn’t enough, now we have fake news in sound cars”, says the acting mayor, Márcio Lüders (MDB).

“We acted quickly to correct it. Since Thursday morning, we have taken the opposite route and we have a sound car from the municipality passing through the same neighborhoods to publicize vaccination, telephones and health posts”.

Three people were taken to the police station but used their right to remain silent. Both vehicles were towed.

“I am evaluating the content of the recording and the situation. We heard the person responsible this Friday (28). We still cannot say that there is a crime involved”, says the delegate of the case, Rafael Sauthier.

On the same day of the seizure, businessman Elácio Hugendobler appeared in a video published by Bolsonarist deputy Bibo Nunes (PSL-RS), identifying himself as the person responsible for the message.

AT leaf, he said that the idea was to do a “good deed” and clarify parents who are in doubt amid publications on social networks. The businessman says he wrote the text and showed it to a lawyer.

“What was disclosed? The clarification, to clarify doubts, so that people can make a better choice. There is no proof, the manufacturer is not responsible, so the choice is yours. That’s all. go,” he says.

He disagrees with the city hall’s assessment that the message is fake news.

“Fake news would be if I said ‘the vaccine is proven, it’s already proven worldwide to be effective, that it prevents Covid or cures people of Covid’.”

The Pfizer immunizer package insert, one of the vaccines approved in Brazil for children, available on the Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) website, lists possible adverse reactions and recommends that a doctor be consulted in certain cases.

In a note to leaf, the pharmaceutical company says that “within its attributions, it cannot guide the conduct to be taken to treat a specific patient or to circumvent a possible adverse event”, it is up to the doctor and health professionals to do so.

Manufacturer of Coronavac, also authorized for children in the country, the Butantan Institute has made available on its website a dossier with research and trials on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine.

The aim of the vaccine is to lessen the severity of the infection. To avoid contagion, it is necessary to maintain measures such as social distance, correct use of masks and hand hygiene.

Voter of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the businessman says that he worked with the collection of signatures for the creation of the Aliança pelo Brasil party. “As long as the president is doing a good job, I will support him,” he says.

Infectologist Melissa Palmieri explains that, although the message is right when it says that the vaccine against Covid-19 is neither mandatory nor required in schools, it is wrong in other points.

The vaccine is not experimental, since its efficacy and safety have been demonstrated, which supported the approval by regulatory agencies such as Anvisa, points out she, who is also a medical specialist in health surveillance and director of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations – São Paulo Regional .

“Today we have a real world situation, that is, the implementation of these vaccines in other countries, in numbers of more than 10 million doses applied, showing the effectiveness in vaccinated children and adolescents, reducing the severity [internações e mortes por Covid]”, Explain.

She points out that the SUS (Unified Health System) is prepared to deal with any adverse reactions, but it is already observed that even the most common in adults, such as arm or headache pain, appear to a lesser extent in children.

“Those who choose the disease are at least four times more likely — there are studies that put it up to 12 times — to develop inflammatory effects, such as myocarditis, from the virus infection. and benefit. The benefit of getting vaccinated outweighs the risk of having an adverse reaction”, she defends.