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Episode Resources

VACCINE HESITANCY

Transcript

Sarah: This is Sarah

Beth: And Beth. 

Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Sarah: [00:00:00] Peer pressure only went so far and that one of the best strategies was just to listen to people's fears and try to address them and that it is labor intensive, individual, emotional work to listen and try to provide as best you can information and patience in the face of those fears or concerns. And that we could really move the needle I believe that. And look, I just thought if anyone. Is well-suited to that deep listening, labor-intensive emotional work, it is our community.

This is Sarah and Beth. You're listening to pantsuit politics, the 

Beth: [00:00:45] home of grace-filled political conversations.

[00:01:00] Sarah: [00:01:05] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We're so happy to have you here with us today. We are going to tackle vaccine hesitancy today. We put a call out on Instagram, who in your life is still hesitant about vaccines? And boy, did you answer. You gave us all the things you're hearing, we're going to try to walk through several of them on today's episode. 

We're also going to talk about the Chauvin trial in Minneapolis and April fools on outside politics. So before we get started, we wanted to talk a little bit about Patreon this month in April. Now we know you've heard us talk about Patreon, but if you're new to the show, you may not know exactly what we're talking about.

Patreon is a platform that allows content consumers to support the content creators that they love financially. Listener support is truly what makes our show possible and Patreon is what makes listener support possible, so as a thank you to our patrons, we provide regular bonus content on Patreon that [00:02:00] you can get there or through your regular podcast app and there are several levels of support. 

So you can choose to support us based on your budget, each with increasing access to that bonus content that we create. The link to our Patreon page is always in our show notes. And so you can check it out any time. 

Beth: [00:02:15] And this one, we wanted to just share with you some of what we do there so that when you hear us reference, it you'll know what we're talking about. So today you can go to our show notes and click the link for our Nightly Nuance. That is a short podcast that I produce in the evenings on Monday through Thursday. This past Wednesday, I made a Nightly Nuance updating us on the legislation that has been passed and is being advanced in state houses throughout the United States around transgender athletes and transgender healthcare.

And so that Nightly Nuance is open to the public. If you click the link, you can listen to it and get a little sample of the kinds of things that we do on Patreon in addition to everything that we do here for the entirety of the public, for free on the podcast. 

We also wanted to let you know that [00:03:00] this weekend is the last chance to get in your fan art submissions for our t-shirts. The deadline is the end of the day on Monday, April 5th. We are loving seeing what you all are creating. We're so honored by it. So go to the link in the show notes for that and just a reminder that the applications to be part of our summer series contributor program on infrastructure are due on April 16th. There's a link with lots of details about that in the show notes, as well.

Sarah: [00:03:26] Before we dive into the Chauvin trial and vaccine hesitancy, we have been having an ongoing conversation on the podcast, and listen around the country, about the surge of migrants from central America and we got the most amazing voice memo from a listener whose name we're not going to use about their experience as a 15 year old resident of Northern Honduras and their perspective on the unaccompanied minor discussion and we thought it was really important to share that with you.

Listener: [00:03:53] Dear Sarah, Beth, and the incredible pantsuit politics team. In the conversation about immigration reform. I [00:04:00] thought my experiences as a 15 year resident of Northern Honduras may offer another perspective. As a human being, I share the outrage of migrant parents being separated from their children and the horror at so many unaccompanied minors making the dangerous journey to the United States. But the perspective of my friends and neighbors is that life is so much better in the U S the difficulty and danger is worth it. Being separated from their children is worth it. The pull of the American dream is worth it. 

There's real corruption here from the president down to, anyone with any form of power. Coming from the United States where checks and balances are not perfect, but are present, it's shocking. My neighbors just accept this as reality and no, there is nothing they can do to change it. So they put their heads down and figure out how to get through each day. While there is real poverty here, almost every one of those who makes the trip to the U S has money. Most people pay other people coyotes to lead them to the border and enter illegally.

And in regard to the unaccompanied minors, the government only provides education through [00:05:00] sixth grade. After that you pay for high school or you go to work. So the unaccompanied minors are minors by US standards, but here every family member expects anyone older than 12 years old to be working and contributing to the family.

Many youth think that the trip to the United States would provide them with a job to support their families. The parents and grandparents are fully supportive. A few stories. One of my neighbors allowed his granddaughter to be taken by a coyote on a three-day journey in the suitcase. The coyote delivered her to the border with only the phone number of her mother in Texas.

The girl was given to her mom without question by the U S government, according to my friends and the coyote received his payment from the daughter. A prestigious high school has a student body of 180. This school offers real opportunities for young people to have good paying jobs after graduation. But in 2019, 28 students left the school to go to the United States. Many went with family members and some went alone.

When the caravans were leaving last year, at least 50 people from a set of [00:06:00] communities with less than 3000 people left with them. Many returned because the circumstances were too difficult with the big group of people. But since then several have gone alone and made it pass the border illegally.

A few friends went in illegally many years ago and now have work visas. A few entered on student visas and are on their third or fourth master's degrees so that they can stay. Scores of friends have gone, been apprehended, put in jail and have been sent back. Most of them have attempted to return to the United States.

Most people who plan to leave, look for children, not necessarily their own to take with them because they know they will get into the U S more easily because of the children. They know they may be separated from those children, but no one I have ever spoken to shows any concern about that. As long as they get in, they say. They know the children will receive food, shelter, and education, and they are convinced that they will be able to find a job to support themselves and their families in Honduras.

Why are they all leaving? The government is corrupt. The US is charging the [00:07:00] Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez with conspiracy and drug trafficking. While in Congress, he changed the constitution so he could run for a second term. Most people believe he stole the election in 2017. Gangs run the cities, charge more tax on most businesses. Money-laundering is the best business in the cities. One area of the country is fully funded, government approved by drug runners. In 2007 Honduras was the country with the highest murder rate per capita in the world. 

A decade ago, Congress received funds to pave the road where we live. According to the government the road is paved, but it is still a dirt road filled with potholes and rocks with a single lane on a mountain side in many places. Last year more money was given to pay half of it. No work has even begun. These situations are tragedies and the Honduran government isn't going to do anything to change it.

I appreciate the Biden administration contemplating working with the central American governments to better the lives of their citizens and to limit the migration, but [00:08:00] with a corrupt government, the US government shouldn't give more funding that will not help the people, but just be squandered by the politicians. Thank you for your concern for those leaving difficult situations in central America and for the best way to integrate or help those who make the journey to the United States.

Sarah: [00:08:15] We are so grateful that she chose to share that perspective and hope that you are as informed by it as we were.

So the trial of Derek Chauvin has begun in Minneapolis, the entire country, and many parts of the world are watching as the trial has been live-streamed. The prosecution is currently making their case and has been calling many of the eye witnesses to George Floyd's death, including the teenager who filmed the video that was seen around the world. And you and I have been having sort of different [00:09:00] reactions to the trial as it is unfolded before all of us. 

Beth: [00:09:05] I think there is so much at stake in this trial and that trials are always so high stakes and so difficult, and that our criminal legal system is so flawed and even in its flaws, not well understood by the public. It just concerns me to televise trials like this. I completely understand the public interest. And I absolutely think the goal is to increase public confidence in whatever the verdict is, in this and every trial.

 It asks to me an awful lot of witnesses to have to become internet famous as they tell these really painful personal stories. I think it puts a lot of pressure on the system. I think it's impossible for me to imagine that the way people conduct themselves is not altered and not just witnesses, but judges and just people in the [00:10:00] courtroom. I just think our behavior is altered when we understand as much as we are able to the extent of people observing us.

Sometimes that leads to good outcomes and sometimes it doesn't. As humans, I'm not sure we're capable of taking something like this in, without sensationalizing parts of it. And so I just, I feel really uneasy. There's not a way to, this could be going on without me feeling uneasy about it, but I don't want to add to any of that pressure on the system and the people operating within the system right now, because I struggle, honestly, as someone who believes so strongly in the rights of the accused, I struggle with the decision by Derek Chauvin and his counsel to take this to trial.

There's just so much at work here that affects me emotionally. And I know that it affects other people in ways that I can't, I [00:11:00] can try to have empathy for, but I can't truly access. I'm just worried about everybody. I think that's the long short of it. 

Sarah: [00:11:06] Well, before I get into my thoughts of the trial, I will say this as someone who also believes in the rights of the accused. I think the biggest issue right now is that the city released its civil settlement with the Floyd family before the trial had even begin. I mean, that's pretty unprecedented. And I think there's a strong argument that it's pretty prejudicial. It feels like the city putting their hands on the scale a little bit.

And to me, that's something that needs to be examined and taking a hard look at once this is all over, perhaps something put in place where the, the civil settlements legally cannot be released or even settled until after the criminal trial. Now, I mean, I think you could, you could make the case that then the criminal trial prejudices, the civil system, but like, I, I dunno, I feel like that's sort of built in by design [00:12:00] within our criminal justice and legal system, but I mean, I, I know that the judge was really upset by that development and I think rightly so. 

Now, as to the trial itself, I am having this weird reaction where it feels like an important evolution in the way these public trials play out. And what I mean by that is I think everything you said is true, and I think the concerns are well grounded. And at the same time, you and I, you know, as we work on our second book, I've been thinking and talking a lot about national trauma and community trauma and how we deal with that. And, you know, in, in many ways I think our criminal justice system is not up to the task of grief or dealing with trauma or any sort of reconciliation.

I think that we want it to play all those roles and it's just ill-suited. [00:13:00] And at the same time, As I'm watching, particularly the testimony of the witnesses, I think the prosecution and the witnesses themselves are doing such an impactful job of showing the ways in which moments like this are not just about the accused and the victim, but have repercussions just far outside the people directly involved.

You know, when I watched the very first time that I watched the video of George Floyd being murdered, I thought, Oh my God, all these people, these people standing around the people, filming the people, watching they're going to be so traumatized [00:14:00] and in a way, hearing them say, yeah, I was traumatized, hearing them articulate the ways that the grief and the trauma have played on them, hearing their thoughts late at night.

 I was particularly struck by Darnella Frazier, who was the teenager who filmed the video saying, you know, I thought I, what could I have done different to help him? And, but I know what's true is that he should've done something different in than pointed to Derek Chauvin. And I thought, wow, like what an amazing moment for her to articulate like, this is how I have been devastated. This is the guilt I feel and then to articulate clearly like, but that guilt is misplaced.

I just think that's really affirming for anyone who's lived through something like this. And it looks in many ways, no, one's lived through something like this because this is such a special case, but to just articulate how frustrated [00:15:00] they felt, how many people called 911 on the police, to see Charles McMillan breakdown and talk about just what it's like to be a black man, and to see this happening to another black man and what he articulated and how it wears on him, just all of that. 

I think these witnesses and the prosecution have just illuminated so much more than what happened that day and the systems and circumstances that were weighing on them at the time that led up to that moment and that continues still. I just, it feels like, uh, a public service or a public reckoning or something bigger than what I usually feel when these trials are televised.

Beth: [00:15:55] I get that and it infuriates me at the same time. [00:16:00] They don't owe anybody that. The horrific truth of it is that it's all playing out within a courtroom that is part of the system that led to George Floyd being murdered. I don't call it the criminal justice system intentionally because I do not think it is just right now.

It broke my heart to hear one of the witnesses articulate so clearly he understands that once you get in the car, you cannot win and that's right. The system is stacked so strongly against defendants. It is stacked so strongly against defendants. And so we're asking all of these people who have just gone through this terrible trauma, the kind of trauma that you just can't, it has to just become part of you. It's not going to go away in your lifetime. 

To help us all deal with systemic racism in America is too much. It's just, [00:17:00] I just want to hug all these people and thank them because the experience of testifying alone is so heartbreaking. It forces you to play a role you never ask for, and to have to do it with all of this attention. It's a lot. And I am grateful to them and I am grateful for them and I am sorry that that's where we are. 

Sarah: [00:17:25] I think what it is for me is that maybe it feels less they and us to me. Because George Floyd's death became a profound moment of we, we, this is affecting everyone. We cannot address this, begin to work on this, acknowledge this without seeing it as a we. Right. And, you know, I think televising is [00:18:00] so difficult because in some ways in invites people in, right, we are watching this together. And in some ways it's inherently separating because we're watching it through a screen. 

So I think both things are true and that's the paradox of media, but maybe that's what it is mand, you know, I don't, I don't think it's a just system either, but it is the system that we have for the society that we live in. And it's the only system we have right now to try to address these things together. 

Beth: [00:18:36] Well, let me say, I, I am not, I don't have this feeling because of a sense of separation. You know, I, I have this feeling because of a sense of togetherness. I think I'm trying to imagine what this must be like, and it breaks my heart into pieces. And I worry about commenting on it from Kentucky, from my white middle-class neighborhood. Like [00:19:00] I just, I feel the weness of it and I, I try to use that weness to remind me, like easy for me to say, this is playing out in a way that is healing because it's not being done at my expense.

And I also don't want to be condescending. Maybe this is a healing experience for those witnesses. I surely hope that it is. You know, I, I want the absolute best for everybody. I think I just feel really limited in what I can say about it, because there's so much at stake and so much going on here. It kind of, it puts me in this space of the Hamilton like there, there are moments that the words can't reach. That's how I feel right now. 

Sarah: [00:19:41] Well, and I think what's hard is there is, and will always be expense, right? There's no way to begin to chip away or work on or whatever, very limited verb you want to use [00:20:00] for how we deal with the death of George Floyd or deal with systemic racism or deal with the oppression of the criminal justice system without prices being paid.

Right. And I think that some of those, that expense that we are accumulating has been paid by the wrong people has been paid for this by the same people over and over and over again and that's what we're trying to get at. But I guess I'm just hesitant because I don't want to imply that there will be a way for us to deal with it without there being any expense, because that's not true either.

Anything this hard, anything this broken, any trauma this big, moving forward, trying to find a path forward, comes with costs. And that's, that's just the reality. And I think, I guess I just, but I think that sometimes there's beauty in [00:21:00] that sometimes the cost is paid, but there's beauty on the other side. And I hope that's what happens here. And maybe it's just my, you know, belligerent optimism that I think that there is a path forward. And I, and it just feels like as I watched this trial, I catch glimpses of that.

Earlier this week, I put a call out on Instagram and asked, who's still experiencing vaccine hesitancy in their community and what are you hearing? And we got some responses. We got a couple hundred responses.

Beth: [00:21:51] We heard a lot. We heard a lot. I think that it's helpful to take a second and talk about what we mean by vaccine hesitancy, because there is a major [00:22:00] difference between I have concerns and I am opposed and so I will use anything and everything. I will throw the entirety of the kitchen at telling you why I'm opposed to it, because I think we need to respond in really different ways, depending on whether we're presented with hesitancy or opposition. 

Sarah: [00:22:20] Right? First of all, I mean this, with all the love in the world, I'm not sure it's worth wasting your one wild and precious life, trying to convince people that are fully opposed to any vaccines at all. Right. Would you agree with that? 

Beth: [00:22:32] Well, because it's not about the vaccine at that point. You can talk for days about the vaccine and not make a dent because they're talking about something else.

Sarah: [00:22:40] Right. Also what I noticed is they're mixed in with vaccine hesitancy. Okay. So we're not gonna worry about opposed. With vaccine hesitancy there's like not a lot of clear delineation between, are we talking about all COVID vaccines? Are we talking about the MRNA COVID vaccines? Cause there is a pretty big distinction. 

Beth: [00:22:59] I want to say one more thing [00:23:00] about the people who are opposed. It's not that I don't think you should talk to them or love them, or have them in your life. Right. Right. I just don't think we're going to be able to give you helpful information on the vaccine to carry into those conversations. And yeah, I think, I mean, to me, the people in the hesitancy corner are mostly talking about the MRNA vaccines because they're new, it's a new technology. 

And I think there are some valid questions about that technology. And that is where it seems fruitful to me to try to learn as much as we can learn and share as much as we can share about our own decision-making process and experience with the MRNA vaccines. 

Sarah: [00:23:35] So one of the strategies you could take as Johnson and Johnson becomes more available is just to say, Oh, that's, I hear your fears. Have you thought about getting the Johnson and Johnson vaccine? And redirect them that way. That's what I'm using with several of my own family members. So I think that's one possibility.

 I mean, part of the reason I asked the question on Instagram is there's this fantastic piece in the New York times called getting to yes, a nursing homes mission to vaccinate it's [00:24:00] hesitant staff. And they just did a really, really lovely job of kind of walking through sort of the like pep talk. Peer pressure only went so far in that one of the best strategies was just to listen to people's fears and try to address them. And that it is labor intensive, individual, emotional work, but that they did see a lot of movement.

And look, I just thought if anyone is well-suited to that deep listening, labor-intensive emotional work, it is our community. Y'all are so good at that. And I just think that's like, that is truly a like a ministry right now is being willing, not when we're talking about like the hardcore opposition or they think bill Gates is going to microchip you, but like the people who really have some fears to listen and try to provide as best you can information and patience in the, in the face of those fears or [00:25:00] concerns and that we could really move the needle. I believe that again, back to my belligerent optimism, I believe that. 

Beth: [00:25:07] I had such a good conversation with one of our listeners, Christine, this week. She was helping me prepare for our infrastructure series and she's a scientist. And we were talking about critical thinking and how I think what has infected the vaccine conversation is this belief that critical thinking is not only skepticism and questioning. It is also like an implicit rejection of what ever the dominant narrative is about something. I think if we can pull back from that and keep that distinction in mind, alongside the piece of that patient listening, where you can take someone seriously, because we need to.

 You will not move the needle with anyone if you are dismissive of their concerns. You can take their concerns seriously without adopting them yourself. [00:26:00] You have to wander into these conversations with, with confidence and competence and a willingness to question what you truly question, but, but not to be so empathetic that you are like, Oh man, maybe I made a mistake getting this thing.

I mean, it's just, it is a hard line to walk, but I totally agree that I believe that the people who engage in this community are more than capable of walking that line to try to help people make a decisions through this process. 

Sarah: [00:26:28] Well, I think what you're touching on there too, is an important distinction as well. It's, there's some people who are just opposed. And then there are people who like there's personality at play here, right? The personality of like, I'm the questioner, I'm the rebel. I'm the one who's like, I really define myself and receive some psychic benefit that has served me in the past from being the like super skeptical, anti-establishment. 

I mean, these people probably listened to Nirvana in their [00:27:00] youth is all I'm saying. One of them could be my husband. He does not have any vaccine hesitancy, but he does have this personality trait where like there's an opposition to whatever is mainstream. You know what I mean?

Beth: [00:27:10] Absolutely. And that is another thing that you cannot talk someone out of. So you just have to kind of be aware of the flags with a person. What I'm saying is don't get attached to the idea that you're going to sit down with somebody and talk about this, and they're going to stand up and say, thank you so much. I'm going to make my appointment right now. 

Sarah: [00:27:26] Okay. So let's walk through the patterns that we saw among the people who are really hearing hesitancy, not opposition. And the first one was that the vaccine came about too fast. And I think, look, we spent months telling people that vaccines took years, that the fastest one had been four years and that we should be, you know, Buckled in for the long term.

Although again, Dr. Fauchi and I, we were together [00:28:00] in our optimism that it would be faster, but even this has happened even faster than he thought was possible. So I think that the observation that this happened faster than they thought it would is fair. And they, and, and then deducing, well, does that mean that they S they skipped steps or cut corners again, not unreasonable.

Beth: [00:28:22] I had this concern and our conversation with Dr. Chris Byer, which we'll link in the show notes helped me when he said we have the combination of a full court press from the entire world and we have such prevalent transmission that we've caught a lot of people to test that we were able to basically fast forward through this process because we had a full court press from the entire world using technology that's been developed for 30 years and a population that is getting this disease so rapidly. We were able to do what we normally do in a more compressed period of time. I found [00:29:00] that really compelling. 

Sarah: [00:29:03] Well, I will never forget early on. It was Dave Pell and his daily email that I really love called next draft. And I remember him articulating at one point early, like March or April of last year, the biggest story in the world right now is not being covered because the people working on this story are working too hard to talk to the press. Like every scientist, every virologist, every epidemiologist like they're working so, like they are just consumed night and day with this in a way that we've never seen the scientific community be consumed before.

And like, they're just, they can't, they don't have time to talk to the New York times. Like even remember when Michelle Becker would come on our show, she would say like, I feel obligated to do this because I know the people who still work in my field cannot, they don't have time to talk to anybody, you know?

 Like, and I think I, so I really like took that in and it became a part of the narrative for me that like, this is [00:30:00] going on right now and we can't see it and it's not being covered, but like, it's almost like I could feel it. Like I could feel not to get woowoo and this middle of this deeply scientific conversation, but like I could, I just felt like I can feel them out there working their butts off in a way we've never seen, like Zaneta fetching has articulated that it even really shifted the way academic research works.

And like, usually it was like, all these scientific studies were really in this gatekeeping mode behind scientific journals and now they're like pre publishing getting the information out there as quickly as they can, even the genetic code for the virus itself. Like in ways we had not seen before, it's not that they were working together and they were working faster.

They were working in ways they had not worked before to make this happen. And I just think, but unless you're real, I can't like, unless you're deep into that coverage and have been for a while, you're not going to, that's not going to be a part of your narrative. 

Beth: [00:30:54] I think truly the best thing the Trump administration did was also provide kind of an [00:31:00] insurance policy for companies to do this, to focus in use every resource because by buying those doses in advance, the government said to these manufacturers, if your drug doesn't work, you aren't going to lose this money.

We bought the doses. If you have to throw the doses away, you still get the money. So they made all of the incentives in the system that are usually quite broken work toward the development and speedy distribution of the vaccine. The other thing that I find really comforting is when we see errors in the process, I know the errors are being caught.

The news about the J and J doses that have to be thrown out because there was a mix-up, that comforts me. We're still watching this closely. The way that federal regulators spotted an issue with an AstraZeneca press release. We're, we're catching the errors. People are still being rigorous in their examination of these vaccines and I think that's really helpful. 

And the one other thing that I've been thinking about with speed is that we probably [00:32:00] just need to adjust our expectations around speed for almost everything, because we don't name it very often, but technology is just getting faster and faster all the time. And so being afraid of something, because it came too fast is probably something that we're going to have to let go of a little bit.

Sarah: [00:32:19] The other thing is we move into talking about specifically, this technology is it wasn't that fast. People have been working on MRNAs vaccines for years and years and years. But what have we said a million times? COVID accelerated things, right? It accelerated all kinds of things. It accelerated problems we see in public education, it accelerated some of the cultural conflicts we're having.

 It accelerated work from home and the way that, you know, office spaces are changing. So that's true in every way and this is another way. Like this was technology that people had been working on for a very long time and COVID was able to accelerate the problem solving and the [00:33:00] eyes on the problem and the diversity of input so that some of the problems that kept tripping them up were able to be solved.

Beth: [00:33:07] I read this great article from the university of Michigan, where they explained that MRNA was being developed as a platform. And you could think of it like a drill that can accept different drill bits or a food processor that can use different kinds of blades. And so when I hear that I get, okay, the drill was built. They just had to build the right drill bit and figure out how to make all of that work. That helps me get how we got here. Right.

 And I also just appreciated how they said, basically this platform gets the right bit on it or the right blade for the food processor. And then that messenger NRA is just a delivery agent that teaches your body how to recognize and fight a new virus. And this approach has been successful even against the mutations, because there are multiple spike proteins on the virus surface.

 And so it change in just one of those because [00:34:00] of a mutation doesn't render the entire vaccine useless as we've seen so far. Now that could change, but that helped me understand the mutation side of this better too, that there's more than one spike protein contained in that messenger RNA to teach our body different ways of looking for the Corona virus.

Sarah: [00:34:19] Yeah. And I think with the technology, understanding the journey it's been on that w that was the problem. They couldn't, they, we knew, we know this on many levels, not just vaccines. We know this with cancer, we know this with auto-immune disorders, that our body we're trying to communicate to our body.

We're trying to send our body messages where it's gotten the wrong memo. Right. And they knew that the MRNA would communicate to the body, but the problem was getting it through because it's very, very fragile and they were trying to figure out how do we get it into the body so that it can continue to convey that message.

You know, it's almost [00:35:00] like when you, in so many ways, I think about the body as a universe, it contains all the complexities of our universe, just in a much smaller scale. And to me, it's like, it's sort of what was going on when we try to reach the Earth's atmosphere, right. Things burn up, they were trying to find the right vehicle to make it out or in as the case may be.

And so when they finally figured that out, that was really key. Like they understood the tech, they understood how it could communicate to the body, but they were having so much trouble reaching the surface. And what's crazy to me is that this vaccine technology like this very complex problem of how do we get into the body was solved with such an intensely simple list of ingredients. 

It is literally the genetic material, some nano-particles and lipids, AKA fat fat is what got it in. And I think that's like amazing that this seemingly complex problem was solved with such a simple material. 

Beth: [00:35:58] In terms of the [00:36:00] material, one of the really legitimate concerns is when you hear that it has fat in it. There has been this question about whether it has pork in it or gelatin, and the vaccines that are on the market right now in the United States, do not have pork in them. The vaccines being administered currently, no pork gelatin in them. So that is not something that you have to worry about if that is a faith concern for you. There are no whole or partial human cells or tissues in these vaccines. They would, that kind of material would literally be too big to fit through the needle used for the vaccination. 

Sarah: [00:36:38] As would a, uh, microchip. I've shared this on Instagram, to my friend who microchip snakes, don't ask it's, it's a crazy job. And he was like, let me show you the needle I use to put a microchip in a snake and I think half of our audience passed out cause it's so, so huge. 

Beth: [00:36:54] So later vaccines will have some metals in them, but teeny tiny [00:37:00] amounts. And the point is to help those vaccines stay stable at higher temperatures than the super cold temperatures that we've been having to preserve these vaccines at because they, they don't have preservatives in them, the Pfizer and the Moderna don't have preservatives in them.

So the later vaccines will have a little bit of metal in addition to sort of the salt, sugar, fat genetic material, but not enough to be concerned about. 

Sarah: [00:37:24] Well, and I think it's worth noting that some of the nanoparticles currently in the vaccine are the cause for the concern over anaphylactic reactions. Some people do react to the, a couple of the nanoparticles that they know are in the vaccine. That's why we have to wait the 15 minutes. Nobody has died. Even people who have had the anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine.

 Important to note, no one has died from the vaccine and what I mean from that is like medical professionals have not looked and said, the vaccine is the cause of death. Now people have died close in time to when they got the vaccine. And there are [00:38:00] lots of family members who blamed the vaccine, but as far as the CDC and the manufacturers, and I know there's a lot of distrust, which is why, where some of this hesitancy comes in, there has been no conclusive evidence that anyone has died as a result of the vaccine itself.

Beth: [00:38:19] And that's a place where I think you sit with your people who are concerned about this and you acknowledge, yes, people have died post getting the vaccine they have, but correlation and causation are different. And we don't have any evidence that links those deaths to the vaccine and those deaths aren't happening at a higher rate than they normally would.

There are a couple of incidents of people dealing with Bell's palsy, post vaccine. And I think we say again, like those rates aren't higher than the rates in the general population. And so we don't know. 

Sarah: [00:38:55] Well, and I think it's a good moment to say. Let's talk about [00:39:00] how many people have gotten the vaccine. And so that's an, that's a chance to examine the numbers from both angles, right? To say, so many people have gotten the vaccine millions and millions of people have gotten the vaccine. And we do not see any broad patterns of negative reactions. And also so many people have gotten the vaccine and we do see a broad pattern of positive outcomes, right?

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you can look at it from both angles. You can say, see how many people have gotten it. And we only hear a few small cases of concern and look how many people have gotten it and even the small cases don't add up in big enough numbers to trigger, concern over something bigger.

Beth: [00:39:43] One piece of how does this work, that some of you ask us about is this belief that the MRNA will actually change our DNA, that our genetic makeup will be messed with. And what I found in my research about this [00:40:00] is that the MRNA does not get to the nucleus of our cells where DNA is stored. 

It brings the message into the body. It tells our immune system what to look out for. That message gets decoded by ribosomes, which are also outside the place where the DNA is stored. And then the cell breaks it down like a garbage disposal. It's like the university of Michigan again said, this is like a message that self-destructs in a spy movie movie.

It comes in, it tells the body what it needs to know, and it gets broken down. And so it is theoretically possible for MRNA to go through a really unlikely process that converts itself to DNA and maybe reach the DNA that's already in our bodies but that is very, very theoretical. We are not seeing that happen, but all of this is related to the idea that the vaccines cause cancer. The vaccines would have to get to a place that they're not going according to everything that I've [00:41:00] read so far in order to do that.

Sarah: [00:41:02] Well and I just think all this gets to some really deep psychological stuff. I mean, we ingest all kinds of genetic material in our food all the time, but there's something that triggers fear and almost like an instinctual reaction when there is an injection. Right. I think like that breaching of the, the skin, the body surface, there's some like deep psychological stuff that happens with us.

Listen, you also see that with food. I think it triggers that sort of like contamination, you know, discuss contamination. Like there's some look, look, there's just deep stuff going on here, always with our bodies and with any action on our bodies, I guess is how I'll put it. 

Beth: [00:41:45] Yeah. I am more worried about the impact of social media on things like mind control than these vaccines. Um, but I also get how it's easier to be afraid of the vaccine than the thing you scroll on your phone. Some of [00:42:00] the objections that we heard from people involve this sense that vaccines are directly linked to elective abortions. 

And so what I have learned is that it is true that the vaccines, some of them have been produced through research involving cells from tissue that comes from cell lines dating back to abortions conducted in the 1970s and eighties. Not all of them but some. And, and they are used at different stages in the process, but fetal cell lines are different than fetal tissue. And the cells that are involved in this research are thousands of generations removed from that original tissue.

And so this is not a concern that I share, but I respect it. And I wanted to run down that information so that if you are talking to people who are grappling with that, I think we can pretty confidently assure them that the concern [00:43:00] they're expressing is very, very far removed from the research that has been conducted that's gotten us to this point. 

Sarah: [00:43:08] This is probably a good transition into another major area of concern we heard, which was the impact of the COVID-19 vaccine on fertility, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. The American college of obstetrics and gynecology came out and said that the COVID-19 vaccine is perfectly safe for pregnant women, lactating women and that there are no impacts on fertility. 

I mean, I was kind of surprised and we'll link to their statement in the show notes that they've even said, there is no need to talk to your physician before getting the COVID vaccine, because that could be a barrier to getting the vaccine. And they don't want to put anybody's barriers because the risk benefit analysis, whether you're pregnant, thinking about getting pregnant or breastfeeding are still firmly on the side of getting the [00:44:00] vaccine instead of risking exposure to COVID.

Beth: [00:44:02] And I think that is the umbrella under which all these conversations have to happen. We are weighing risks against one another and some of these risk that have been identified in conversations, propagated by people who are not vaccine hesitant, but are vaccine opposed and planted with people who become vaccine hesitant have no evidence behind them.

And we have to weigh that unsupported, unknown risk of getting the vaccine against the very well known risks of getting COVID. And so in pregnancy, we know that the risk of serious illness, if you contract COVID while pregnant is higher, and we know that COVID increases the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

So we have risks that we don't really understand or kind of foggy and someone said a thing [00:45:00] online and I heard it and I get why that is scary and it feels important to run it down and we have to weigh it against our very scary, well-documented, well-supported reality. And that's just true across the entire vaccine conversation.

I'm not going to say there's zero risk associated with getting a vaccine. I have watched people get fever and headache and fatigue. Sarah, You had some reaction to your second dose, right? Like it's not a zero risk activity. It is just for me, a very clear risk equation when I compare it to what could COVID 19 look like for me?

Sarah: [00:45:36] Yeah. I think this is really hard because so much of fertility and pregnancy and breastfeeding is sort of a black box. We don't understand all of it that well, we know that there are problems testing this stuff on pregnant women. There are issues of consent. Now, again, because millions and millions of people have gotten this, we probably have better data than we usually do as far as what [00:46:00] happens in pregnant people, because lots and lots of pregnant people and breastfeeding people have now gotten the vaccine. 

I will say this, and I know this is a really personal issue for me because so much of the concern when you're pregnant is inflammation right. In the, we don't really understand this exactly, but you know, my youngest son, Felix, suffered a prenatal stroke. And I'll never forget one time my pediatrician saying the truth is it was probably a virus and you'll really never know what caused the prenatal stroke.

 So I'm not speaking from scientific conclusion here, but there is pretty good scientific evidence that virus and inflammation while you're pregnant, acts on the fetus's genetics in ways we really don't understand, but that can lead to some pretty hardcore outcomes. And so that's just, what if, you know, if I was about to get pregnant or if I was pregnant, that would be my concern. There's not [00:47:00] zero risk of inflammation from the vaccine.

And so if I was in a space where I was thinking about getting pregnant, I sure as heck would get the vaccine and that inflammatory response and inflammatory response to the vaccine out of the way before I was pregnant. But to me, when we're talking about the risk of an inflammatory response, a two, three week reaction to the virus itself, as opposed to a short and contained reaction to the vaccine, Is a much bigger risk.

We just, we don't, we know enough to know that getting even minor viruses when you're pregnant can lead to some pretty hardcore outcomes. And so, you know, I would just that's to me, what I would be really, really concerned about. And that's not to say that everyone who gets COVID while pregnant will see some sort of impact on their fetus.

It's just, that's the thing. It's like your genetics, their genetics, what's going on in their development in that time, like how the [00:48:00] inflammation acts on them or how it does it. Like there's just a million different factors but to me, that's what I would be weighing really carefully. I think it's important to break away the concerns about fertility, because I think what you're seeing the fertility is a little bit different, which is mirroring a broader concern we've heard, which is we just, we don't want to be the Guinea pigs. 

We do not know the long-term impact of these vaccines. And so it's just this massive test case. And even though we had clinical trials, we don't know the longterm impact of the vaccine on the population. And I think that's what you see with fertility. What if it impacts me longterm in ways we don't understand yet? 

Beth: [00:48:44] Yeah. And I don't, I'm not dismissive of that concern. I also just think we know that COVID impacts people long-term too. To me, it relates back to one of the objections to vaccines, which is like, well, I'm pretty healthy. I'm not really worried about getting COVID, [00:49:00] which I will own. That is where I started.

 Last month, last March, I probably say on this podcast 15 times, I'm not worried about getting it. I'm worried about spreading it. The experience of the past year, I am worried about getting it because I don't have a clue what it would look like for me. I know people who are some of the healthiest people I've encountered and they have had terrible sickness from COVID.

And I know some people who are rather unhealthy and have had rather light cases and the data would suggest that that's not how it usually goes uh, but it's out there. I would just say to the people who feel like they are resilient enough to withstand COVID, I love you enough to tell you that I think that's a little bit arrogant. I just think you don't know. Your body doesn't have a sign that enables us to say with confidence that you'll sail through it, like the colder or the flu. 

Sarah: [00:49:56] Well, and I think that moment is sort of like the moment you were [00:50:00] talking about earlier with the Trump administration. There are ways where if some of this is coming down, because let's be honest, some of this is about politics. It's just, let's put that on the table and be honest about it. There is a way to like build trust and open up a pathway inside this conversation by acknowledging where the other side got it wrong or where your quote unquote side got it wrong. 

So if you're talking about the pace of the vaccine development, and you can say, look, let me give credit where credit is due. The approach of the Trump administration with operation warp speed and the name was right. They did the right thing and they accelerated the path of development and that credit where credit is due, right to open up that little path.

 And I think here to say, look. It's true that it's at certain points in the pandemic, we acted like everybody who got it would die. And you see that like in the polling of Democrats, right. Where they're polling that the hospitalization rate is way higher than it actually is. And so what [00:51:00] I've learned from watching, quote unquote, my side react or, and what I've learned from, you know, being honest about the, the holes in our reasoning is that we don't really know and that in a way is why I'm even more concerned because you're right.

You could get it and be fine. And a healthy, what I've seen is exactly what you just articulated. Like I've seen healthy people get really sick and I've seen people who from the media coverage should have been on a ventilator who weren't. Right. And so I think what we're acknowledging is there's just a lot we don't know about how you react to the body, but the risk of the long haul reaction is high enough that I'd really like you to consider getting the vaccine.

Beth: [00:51:37] Cause the other thing I've seen is people who got pretty mild cases, but the long haul symptoms were much, much worse. We just don't know. We don't know. 

Sarah: [00:51:45] And, but like, that's, I think that's the problem right though, is saying like, we don't know can feed into this. Well, we don't know about the vaccines either. I think that's hard. I think we just have to acknowledge that it's kind of hard.

Beth: [00:51:56] It is hard. I think it's enormously difficult. And I also [00:52:00] think that again, we don't leave these conversations expecting people to change their minds. We leave them saying, I just wanted to share how I'm feeling about this with you, because you matter to me. I would feel so much better if you got the vaccine. It's your choice and I respect that. I would feel so much better if you got the vaccine, because I love you. 

Sarah: [00:52:17] And I think knowing acknowledging when it's hard and we don't know, and other places can sort of reveal that we are holding the vaccine to a standard, we don't hold other things too. We don't really know the long-term impact of some of the medications you might take or be put on in a hospital if you got COVID. Listen, we don't know long-term and the impact, some of the foods we eat, because again, it's that sort of the universe of the body. Like we can, we can test it on some people, but it might act differently on you.

We can see how it plays out across the population, but that might show up differently in your body. And that's not to say, like, we shouldn't try, we should reject all of that because there's always the complexity of our individual reactions but just to [00:53:00] acknowledge that like, well, this is true in lots of things that we that we move forward with, that we take for granted, that we absolutely sign up for, be it pharmaceutical intervention or surgery, or our diets or supplements. 

Like there's lots of places in our lives where we re the, the risk and the benefits and where we certainly do not know and might never know the full and complete picture of the risk assessment and we do it anyway. And I feel like we hold vaccines to a standard we don't hold other things to. 

Beth: [00:53:32] I think that's a good transition to spend a minute on vaccine passports because in a way we already have them. We have to fill out all this paperwork for our children to go to school, right. We have to show them that our children have received vaccines in order for them to enter that environment. And I know that people are worried about this.

 Now again, I would try to separate the decision on whether you actually get a vaccine from your feelings about who then gets to know that you had that [00:54:00] vaccine and in what context, because those are different things. But when we talk about vaccine passports, I am just hearing that we are entering dystopia.

Because of the, the notion that there may be a technology that allows us to quickly communicate we've been vaccinated and gain entry to certain places because we have been. Again, I think this is a hard issue. I have different feelings about having to show that I've been vaccinated to go to an indoor concert than to get on an airplane.

I think those are different spaces and that we have different sets of responsibilities and different levels of risk in those spaces. I think travel is a human right. And so I don't think that you ought to have to have a vaccine to get on an airplane. I do think we should have a menu of options that are about safety.

So if you haven't been vaccinated, I think you should be tested. And I think you should wear a mask for your safety and everyone else's. [00:55:00] I am comfortable with some flexibility, even though I would encourage everyone to get this vaccine. Okay. There is, that is my stance. I want everybody to get vaccinated because I care about you. Please do it. 

And where someone has a severe allergy, some kind of whatever, those limited cases where a vaccine is just not going to happen for someone. I don't want to deny you the benefit of being in society with the rest of us. I don't want to create pariahs. I do think that we know enough about transmission and safety, to be able to put some options out there around things that truly everyone should have access to like travel and education.

And then in concert venues, restaurants, theme parks, places that are privately owned, that none of us are entitled to traverse, if they want us to show that we have made this choice so that we're able to participate more fully in those activities, I have no problem with that [00:56:00] whatsoever. I have concerns about cybersecurity. I think a lot of this is difficult, but I think we can overcome those hard things. And I think we can offer options where they're needed and in a responsible way, start to move forward here.

Sarah: [00:56:22] Can you tell me if I'm a bad person, because first of all, I'm not concerned about the vaccine passport. I think about it almost not at all. I will do it if it's available to me. I feel like a bad person, cause I'm not really even concerned about the privacy issue. Also I have this, I have I'm in this head space that like once there is enough vaccine out there for everyone to get it, anyone that wants it can. It's like, I've like morphed into some libertarian, which is usually the last of my instincts that I'm like, okay, well you had the choice.

You know, [00:57:00] like maybe, and maybe I can't really fully occupy this until kids are available to get vaccinated, but there's just a sense, like I was talking with somebody that were like, well, I would just feel terrible if I, if somebody got COVID at my event and I'm like, well, I wouldn't because they had the choice to get the vaccine. Does that make me a bad person? I need you to tell me that or not. 

Beth: [00:57:18] I do not think you are a bad person at all. I think you are a strange combination of beginning with a huge amount of trust in government and other institutions and also holding people to responsibility for their own conduct. Okay. Okay.

I'll take that strange combination. Yeah. I think we're all strange combinations of things. Okay. I'm a strange combination of a million things. So just the strange combination in me sees and honors that in you. I just think that you begin with like, well, they're going to figure this out and get it right and that's a system that we can all get on board with. And if you can't get on board with, it sucks for you.

Sarah: [00:57:58] It's on, it's all on you. What do you want me to [00:58:00] do? Like force you to get it, or we have to all shut down because you don't want to get it. Like that's not fair either. We all did the right thing. If you want to continue to take the risk.

You know, in some ways I don't maintain this strange combination because like, I do want to force people to wear helmets because the truth is with the same way with helmets, I might be talking myself out of the position as literally live right as we're doing this. Because my issue with helmets is like, well, you chose not to wear the helmet, but then the medical cost for everybody goes up if you then crash and then you're massively expensive medical treatment is then raises the prices for everybody. Right? 

So there is a, there's an argument to be made that like the people who choose not to get vaccinated and then end up in the hospital, And perhaps cannot pay their bills, which not even, that's not a moral judgment, that's just the reality of our crappy healthcare system, is going to raise the price for everybody. So there is even like the truth is there's still a more, like there's still a moral impact even if everybody from zero [00:59:00] to 99 has been able to get the vaccine who wants it. 

Beth: [00:59:03] I think there's just a lot that I don't yet understand about the risk assessment in a world where most people have been vaccinated. I just don't get that world yet. Yeah. And so, so I can, as I think about vaccine passports, I have sympathy for private company that runs this theme park not wanting to answer the question, what if somebody gets COVID here?

 You know, and, and not wanting to continue, especially as like small places, I think about yoga studios and salons and, and small gyms. You know, if you want to, you've got customers who want to come in and do things the way they used to before we heard a coronavirus, right. And people are getting vaccinated and you've gotten your team vaccinated. 

Okay. So you're trying to run the space more like you ran it before all of this, and people don't want to wear their masks anymore. And we get [01:00:00] to a point where a lot of people have been vaccinated. I get saying, well, if you've been fully vaccinated and you can show me that, then you can come do, as you did here. And if you haven't been fully vaccinated, I'm not going to have you here because I cannot deal with the potential liability side of that. And not just liability in terms of somebody going to Sue me and what do I have to pay? But like the moral liability. 

Sarah: [01:00:24] Or also just the complexity of asking your staff to enforce that because that's stressful.

Beth: [01:00:28] It's very stressful. It is hard. All of this is hard. We've got a big story circulating in my community right now about a family that was refused admission to the aquarium because a four year old who has down syndrome, didn't have her mask on and what I said to Chad is that sounds really awful. And probably the person who turned them away was 17 years old, you know, and thought these are the rules and I was told to enforce the rules. 

So getting out of the, the hellscape of all this decision-making, if you're a [01:01:00] private organization and you want to do that via a vaccine passport, I get it. I, 100% get it. I do think there are concerns. I think aspects of it are tricky, but I don't think it is a road to dystopia. And I really struggle with the people making those arguments, because those are the same people who haven't wanted to do anything this whole time. 

Sarah: [01:01:21] Right. Because the reality is we're not going to those staff members are not going to escape the stress of when somebody doesn't have the vaccine passport, then pitching a fit that they can't get in.

Right. It's not actually going to remove this across the board. It might dramatically reduce it, but there will still be people who show up who want to protest and make a scene because they don't have the vaccine passport. 

Beth: [01:01:41] Right. If you have like fundamental objections to these vaccines that we cannot overcome. Okay. I respect that about you. That is going to have a consequence, right? Like a lot of, a lot of my views come with a consequence. Like that's just what it means to be a person, right? The [01:02:00] behaviors that we engage in have results that attached to them and something like this, where we all affect each other.

We just are, we cannot help it. We just all affect each other. We are in a race right now against these mutations, right? The more we can get everybody vaccinated before transmission just ramps and ramps and ramps up and we get lots of new mutations. Like there, there is a social good to getting vaccinated right now.

And I don't mind people in most places having to say, yes, I participated in that social good before they're able to come into a place where they're then going to interact with an effect, a bunch of other people. And I think there are places where that's not appropriate. And so what other options are available in those spaces? To me, that's the question. 

Sarah: [01:02:47] Well, I think I might have fully argued myself out of this position because in no other place in my life, do I act like the decisions people make are made in a vacuum and so I really can't act like that here. And so to say like, well, it's on [01:03:00] you, it's not really fair because we're dealing with different levels of education, different cultural issues, different religious issues, different, you know, even like medical, psychological, traumatic issues.

And so I think I might've come all the way back around to, I have more sympathy and maybe we can, we can, um, not just push people off a cliff and expose them to all the risks that they would have if they refuse to get the vaccine. And it's probably a good place to end this conversation because I think that acknowledging people don't make their judgements about the vaccine in a vacuum is, is a helpful posture as you enter these conversations, 

Beth: [01:03:41] Sarah what's on your mind outside of politics? 

Sarah: [01:03:44] Well, it's April fool's day and I think April fools has gotten a, it's gotten a bad rap and in some ways I think that's fair. I think the corporate April fools is it's risky. Often it's just dumb. Poor Volkswagen out there saying they're [01:04:00] going to be Volkswagen and their stock prices Rose like that was, it was a gamble. I think that was a consequence they, they forsaw.

 But I do think it's fun with kids. I just think it's one of the few days, a year where I can just be truly silly and playful with my kids and I got them so good today. We took our kids to school. I took the middle-schoolers, which is my neighbor's child and my child who are in sixth and seventh grade.

And about a block from the school, I very subtly put the car in neutral and actually like, we ran out of gas. Like they're like young enough, like I think if you about old enough, you'd be like, why is the, why is it revving? You're not out of gas. They didn't know that. And I pulled over and I was like, you guys are gonna have to walk to school.

And they were like getting their stuff out to get out and I was like April fools and I got them so good. And it was so fun and it was such delight. And then my husband did it to the littles on the way to elementary school and they were also, we just got him so good. And it's just, it's fun. I like it. And I, my husband says it's because I'm a mean person, but I'm only a mean [01:05:00] person on this one day and so I just think I like April fools. I want, I want to keep it. I don't want it to get canceled. 

Beth: [01:05:06] We had mixed results on our house this morning. So Chad has the idea that we wake up and we just start speaking jibberish to each other, very emphatically and we pretend that we can't understand the kids. And so we did and Jane like for a while, it's just kind of irritated. So she's, she's 10, she's irritated for a while. And then she gets mad. 

Well, she has a brief moment of laughing, like, Oh, I get it as April fools. And then she gets mad and she hands me a sheet of paper that says pranks at the top, because yesterday she talked about how she was going to sit down and write down all her pranks that she was going to do to her dad.

So it says pranks across the top. And then she writes to me, cut it out and she's furious. So I go and Ellen's room, who has just gotten up. Ellen is five and Ellen [01:06:00] immediately starts doing it back to me. Ellen's like, this is the greatest day to be alive and she's in it with me just rolling along she's gesturing, she's acting like she totally understands what I'm saying and this makes Jane even madder.

Oh. And then Jane melts down into tears, like angry tears. And Jane was like, and here's where she's right and I was wrong. She said, I asked you to stop and you didn't. And that was right. That's fair and I owe her an apology. At the same time, Jane very much likes to be a little bit mean to other people and does not like to have it come back to her. And so it was just a, it was a really interesting morning seeing their two reactions. 

And so after Jane broke down, obviously we stopped except with Ellen who was just having a ball, so very revealing about their different styles and places in life. And just, you know, I just keep looking at Jane and remembering, Oh my gosh, being a 10 year old girl is the hardest. It is so hard to be a 10 year old girl. So I've got [01:07:00] to have some gentleness for her. 

Sarah: [01:07:01] This does remind me where a prank went awry because I did the thing where you freeze the cereal. Have you ever done that?

Beth: [01:07:09] I haven't done that one. 

Sarah: [01:07:10] It's super fun. The problem was then I did it when they were Griffin was probably five. Amos was three. They were little so like the freezing went over so well, they thought it was hilarious. Here is my advice. Do not do it with the last of the sugary cereal.

So I had done it with the remainder of the lucky charms. So when I could not then go, ha ha April fools. Here's your real bowl of lucky charms, but instead offered them oatmeal. Ooh, that went over like a lead balloon. So if you freeze the cereal, it's a delight. Make sure you have more of the cereal left is my only advice. 

Beth: [01:07:48] For the calibration, you can only be a little bit mean, not a lot mean. 

Sarah: [01:07:52] Yeah. Yup. Yup. Gotta be over quick. Like one year I drew mustaches on their face in the middle of the night and took pictures and [01:08:00] Griffin did that. It was, he was about Janes age. He did not like that. He washed it off before he got off. Like he, it was like something about the loss of control.

Even though he, he liked the, I think the reason the out of gas went over so well is like, it was, it was a prank on me. Oh my gosh. I'm so crazy. I forgot the gas. Like it was a, Nicholas was like, your mother didn't fill the car up, you know, like it wasn't on them. Right. It felt, I think that was a little bit of the difference that, but man, I just let's just do a, do a love a brain.

Beth: [01:08:29] Lest you think we scarred her, a few minutes later, Jane comes into my bedroom and says, Oh mommy, I really hurt my ankle. And she lifts up her pants and she has used makeup to create like a very good looking gash on her ankle. 

Sarah: [01:08:43] A very immediate, uh, very like instantaneously approved appearing bruise, which is yeah.

Beth: [01:08:48] Yeah. I mean, it looked really good. She did an excellent job and I was like, that is good looking. And I see that you're back in the April fool's game. 

Sarah: [01:08:57] Oh, I love now. Have you ever gotten Chad really [01:09:00] good? Cause it is much harder to get kids to get adults. 

Beth: [01:09:03] My brain doesn't do this. I'm like I've struggled to be a little bit mean. Chad has to come up with these ideas. Chad has to move the execution of them. The other night we were sitting and we were having family reading time and it was like it was approaching bedtime. And so Jane always goes down and gets medicine for our dog that our dog takes at bedtime. And so she goes downstairs and we had already turned off all the lights downstairs and we, our lights are controlled through our Amazon echos.

So we hear Jane downstairs going Alexa, kitchen lights on. And Chad goes over to the echo that's upstairs and he's like, Alexa kitchen lights off. And they kept doing it back and she's getting madder and Alexa kitchen lights on. And Chad's like, Alexa, kitchen lights off. So I just went back and forth. It was so funny. I never in a million years would have thought to do that though. It's just not in me. 

Sarah: [01:09:49] Well, I only got him once because it is in me, but it's like, I only got one chance to really get him good so now he's always on guard, but before we had kids, I called him [01:10:00] one time on April fools and convinced him that I had been arrested for not paying a speeding ticket. And it was so good. It's so sweet. I'm still living on it. Like I'm still comes up every year. I get to relive it. The kids know the story now, even though they weren't alive, we all get to experience it together. Oh, it was so good. I got him. So it wasn't for very long, but I did get him for a short moment in time.

Beth: [01:10:22] Well, I like your rules that it's like a prank on you, not the other person. I think that's a really good one. I think the shortness in time, I feel like you've got a good formula for this. 

Sarah: [01:10:31] I just love it. I love April fools. I'm hardcore on it. So I hope that everybody had a good, safe, fun, April fools with no tears, some tight boundaries.

And we also hope that we have left you with some good information as you go out there and have those conversations about the vaccine. We're always so grateful for you joining us here on Pantsuit Politics and until next week, keep it nuanced y'all.

Beth: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah: Megan Hart is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

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