If I Have Cancer, Dementia, or MS, Should I Get the COVID Vaccine?

Kaiser Health News reports that as public demand grows for limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, there are lingering questions about their appropriateness for older adults with various illnesses. It remains unknown how the vaccines will affect people 65 and older undergoing cancer treatment, since such individuals were not included in clinical trials. Tobias Hohl at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center suggested patients should weigh three factors in their decisions — the vaccines' safety, effectiveness, and the risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19. Moreover, the federal government and all 50 U.S. states recommend vaccines for long-term care residents, most of whom have some form of dementia. Meanwhile, the Mayo Clinic's Abinash Virk said older adults with comorbidities should definitely get vaccinated, because "Pfizer's and Moderna's studies specifically looked at people who were older and had comorbidities, and they showed that vaccine response was similar to that of people who were younger." Philippa Marrack at National Jewish Health noted a lack of scientifically rigorous data on how people with autoimmune conditions respond to the vaccines, and said patients should talk with their doctors about delaying immunization until other vaccines with different formulations become available. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society also recommended that most patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) should be vaccinated, as "the risk of getting COVID-19 far outweighs any risk of having an MS relapse from the vaccine."