I was asked to explain my acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine by someone who knows my history as the vaccine go-to expert in both Auburn (King County Health Department) and Vancouver (Clark County Health Department) for two decades.

We’d be in the medical dark ages without vaccines. We’d be dealing with epidemics of smallpox, whooping cough, polio, measles, chickenpox, rubella and influenza to name just a few diseases. All can have deadly complications. There is no cure for virus-borne illnesses. That’s why vaccines have changed our world — saving millions of lives for decades. I call them God’s miracles.

The human body is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Its ability to defend itself against invaders is awesome. Vaccines expose the body to a weakened, altered form of disease to stimulate the body’s response. The body manufactures antibodies to kill and destroy this invader the next time it presents itself. It creates a disease-specific memory.

In the past, the material to create vaccines needed time to culture and grow. Developments in recent years have enabled scientists to replicate the invader in a lab. This eliminates the length of time needed to develop and produce a vaccine. The ebola vaccine is such a vaccine.

To refute a rumor, a vaccine is not able to change human DNA. An entirely different, far more complex process is needed to begin to alter human DNA in the lab.

I am grateful to be the recipient of what I call another miracle — God’s revealed knowledge to those who developed the COVID-19 vaccine.

Marjorie Gordon, BS RN,

Auburn