Elon Musk said that his third vaccine shot nearly landed him in the hospital.
Billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday claimed that his Covid vaccine shot almost sent him to the hospital. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Mr Musk reposted a video from another user claiming that Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness was on the decline around the world and some countries had halted the use of the shot. Replying to a commentator on the video, he said that he was opposed to the "outrageous demand" that people get vaccinated.
"My concern was more the outrageous demand that people *must* take the vaccine and multiple boosters to do anything at all. That was messed up," Mr Musk said in his post. He also claimed that he would have rather gone to "prison" than enforce a mandatory vaccine policy for his workers. He then said that his third vaccine shot nearly landed him in the hospital.
"As for myself, I got original Covid before the vaccine was out (mild cold symptoms) and had to get three vaccines for travel," Mr Musk stated, adding, "The third shot almost sent me to [the] hospital."
In his post, Mr Musk did not describe the symptoms he experienced that he claims nearly caused him hospitalisation. "It's not like I don't believe in vaccines - I do. However, the cure cannot be potentially worse than the disease," he said. "And public debate over efficacy should not be shut down," he added.
Mr Musk concluded his post by saying that there is a "great potential" for curing many diseases using synthetic mRNA, "so let's not throw the baby out with the bath water".
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Notably, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Covid-19 vaccines can cause some side effects, the most common being pain and swelling at the injection site, fatigue, headache, chills, or muscle aches. But as per The Independent, there have been extremely rare cases in which some recipients suffered from myocarditis or pericarditis, which is the inflammation of the heart muscle or its outer lining. The condition is usually mild and heals on its own, but in extremely rare cases can require medical attention or be fatal.
According to CDC data, there were 635 cases of myocarditis diagnosed out of the 54.8 million doses of the mRNA vaccine given to children between the ages of 5 and 17, with the data coming from May 2022.
The CDC says, "Any health problem that happens after vaccination is considered an adverse event. An adverse event can be caused by the vaccine or can be caused by a coincidental event not related to the vaccine."