Offspring Drummer Dropped Because He Won’t Get Vaccinated

The Offspring’s Pete Parada has become the latest high-profile figure to fall foul of vaccine requirements, after he revealed he’d been booted off his band’s upcoming tour for refusing to get the jab.

Parada claimed his bandmates have considered him ‘unsafe to be around’ after he made the choice to not get the COVID-19 vaccine for medical reasons.

In a post on Instagram, the drummer, who suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome as a child, said that reported links between some of the COVID vaccines and the syndrome led him to decide the risks of getting vaccinated ‘far outweigh the benefits.’

He added that while he’d previously had mild COVID and was ‘confident I’d be able to handle it again,’ he was ‘not so certain I’d survive another post-vaccination round of Guillain-Barré syndrome.’

According to the BBC, the condition has been listed as a ‘very rare’ side effect of the Janssen and AstraZeneca vaccines, however leading charities supporting sufferers of Guillain-Barré have nevertheless urged those who have had the syndrome to get vaccinated, saying that the chances of a second episode following the vaccine were ‘almost zero’ and that ‘the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh any risk.’

‘They’re doing what they believe is best for them, while I’m doing the same,’ he said.

While Parada stressed that his decision was made for medical reasons, he also took the opportunity to hit out at what he described as ‘coercion’ on the part of some companies and authorities in the United States who have introduced mandatory vaccine requirements as the country looks to return to normality.

‘I do not find it ethical or wise to allow those with the most power… to dictate medical procedures to those with the least power,’ he wrote, adding that he believed that vaccine hesitancy was in part driven by ‘an understandable distrust in a system that has never prioritised the health or well-being of their communities.’