NIH director asks Americans to leave 'conspiracy theories' on vaccines behind and 'look at the facts'

WASHINGTON — Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, made a direct appeal to Americans Sunday to "hit the reset button" on skepticism of approved Covid-19 vaccines, stressing that the independent nature of the approval process and the strong safety measures that should give the public confidence.

In an interview with "Meet the Press," Collins said that mistrust of vaccines continues to be a source of great concern public health officials, insisting that anyone who wants to “look at the facts” surrounding the vaccine’s development, testing and safety record should “be very reassured.”

“I would like to plead to people who are listening to this this morning to really hit the reset button on whatever thy think they knew about this vaccine that might cause them to be so skeptical. The data is out there now,” he said.

“This is a very powerful outcome of this incredibly intense, yearlong experience, to develop this. I think all reasonable people — if they had the chance to put the noise aside and disregard all those terrible conspiracy theories — would look at this and say: I want this for my family, I want it for myself. People are dying right now, how could you possibly say let’s wait and see if that might mean some terrible tragedy is going to befall.”  ...