A new pre-print from a team at the University of Oxford has found that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being restricted or banned around the world over links to blood clots, does not appear to cause the rare side effect at a much greater rate than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. However, on the basis of current reporting rates, the same complications are many times more likely to be caused by the disease itself, they say. The Independent has the story.
The risk of developing a rare brain clot from COVID-19 is about eight times greater than from the AstraZeneca–Oxford vaccine, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of Oxford, who are not linked to the vaccine, also found that people infected with coronavirus are “manyfold times” more likely than normal to develop the rare clotting disorder, known as cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT), where blood clots in the veins that run from the brain.
“There’s no doubt that Covid is a much greater risk of this [condition] than any of the vaccines,” said Professor Paul Harrison, a co-author of the study.
The research, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, drew comparisons between more than 500,000 COVID-19 patients in the US and 34 million people in Europe who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as the background level of CVT in the general population.
For COVID-19, the incidence rate of CVT stands at 39 cases per one million people, the study showed. But for a million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab, there will be just five cases of CVT over a two-week period. …
The study also suggested that four cases of CVT are likely to occur in one million people vaccinated with either the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech jab. However, the scientists warned that the data on this is too thin to establish any firm conclusions.
The researchers acknowledge a number of limitations in their research.
The scientists warned that all comparisons must be interpreted cautiously since data are still accruing and drawn from different sources. They added that their research was unable to determine the relative risk of developing CVT after vaccination due to uncertainty around the baseline rate for this condition.
Nor did the study address the incidence rate of thrombocytopenia in COVID-19 patients and people who had been vaccinated. This condition, where a patient presents abnormally low levels of platelets, has been detected alongside CVT in the cases of concern reported to date. …
The Oxford researchers drew their COVID-19 patient data from a US-based electronic health records network which had recently been used by the team to show the neurological and psychiatric consequences of coronavirus.
This database, which is made up of a total of 81 million US patients, provided clear detail on CVT cases that had been detected among people infected with coronavirus, the experts said – though they acknowledged there may be under-reporting of the condition in medical records.
As for the incidence rate of CVT among people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab, this was taken from the European Medicines Agency’s database, which covered more than 34 million individuals at the time of publication.
A further observation is that the COVID-19 patients in the study are drawn from a “federated electronic health records network recording anonymised data from healthcare organisations, primarily in the USA”. This suggests they are hospital patients, or at least those who have sought medical assistance, and so are not representative of all Covid infections but only the more serious. This contrasts to the vaccinated group, which is the healthy population as a whole, albeit with more vulnerable groups often vaccinated first. This may skew the comparison considerably, making blood clots among those infected with Covid appear much more common than they are.
How will regulators respond, having restricted one vaccine over this issue (and increasingly the Johnson & Johnson one as well), will they not have to be consistent? Will they remove the restrictions from AZ and J&J, or apply them equally to the other two, or somehow justify the discrepancy? Will be interesting to watch this play out.
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To compare the risks properly the study needs to have matching demographics etc. which most definitely was not done. There is also the fact that to make a valid comparison from the personal point of view one has to factor in if one has contracted COVID-19 previously, or the probability of contracting it now. For example if one has previously contracted COVID-19 and not suffered CVT, then receiving the vaccine gives you an infinitely greater probability of a CVT event from the vaccine than from COVID-19. A trivial example maybe but shows how careful one needs to be when looking at this kinds of relative risks. If one hasn’t contracted COVID-19 but has natural immunity the same result applies. If one hasn’t been infected but doesn’t have natural immunity, then you need to multiply the probability of contracting COVID-19 (very low now) with the probability of developing a CVT event. Again this brings it below the risk level associated with the AZ vaccine.
And we haven’t even been discussing VITTIT and all the other adverse reactions, known and unknown, short and long term.
“… how careful one needs to be when looking at this kinds of relative risks.”
Relative risks tell you little without context – i.e absolute risk.
one needs the moon on a stick to do things properly, we work with the material at hand.
Agreed. And the other missing factor – how many people with working immune systms developed the clots from covid. I suspect not many but we’ll never know
Sorry but this has pushed me over the edge. Too many pro vaccine articles for me. Im off.
That’s not the main problem here – it’s the inability generally to focus enough on the real issues and the pointless nature of these ‘vaccines’. Blood clots are a distraction from the main medical and ethical issues.
… although I do agree that too many articles seem to accept the nonsense that the snake oil is effective in real world terms.
Come across to join us on Reddit where many have moved for the same reason – far better BTL banter than here, I feel, and lots of knowledge being shared.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSceptics/
There definitely seems to have been a shift. I’m all for balanced reporting but this edition is definitely more pro-vaxx at a time when I don’t believe we are being told about the true risks for a vaccine still under trial for a disease that is not serious for the majority if the population.
Interesting that on the one hand these blood clots due to the vaccine are, we are told, supposedly “incredibly rare” but on the other hand they are sufficiently common to provide enough data for a statistically valid comparison between the various vaccines.
Something smells a bit fishy to me.
This is a meaningless comparison. If they were honest they would show that most of the covid patients with these events are elderly. There’s not much doubt that vaccinating 80 year olds will have a net benefit. The results won’t look so good in young women.
For the healthy under 80, any gene therapy or vaxx against Covid 19 is unnecessary, carries a negative risk/benefit ratio and is best avoided.
As simple as ‘there is no asymptomatic transmission and infectiousness’ amongst the unvaxxed, only, sadly and unnecessarily now among the vaxxed though, or as ‘masks and lockdowns don’ t work, they only harm’, or as
‘if you are sick, stay at home, that’s it’- and the only ‘intervention’ ever needed and making sense.
Until there is proof via an autopsy review that people have been dying of this phantom menace, there is no reason to believe the ‘vaccine’ is safe for anyone.
“There’s not much doubt that vaccinating 80 year olds will have a net benefit.”
Can you point me to some data that backs that up?
The key question – and I’ve never seen an answer, beyond the dog-like behaviour of bringing back the stick thrown by government.
Indeed, we need to see all-cause mortality measured against a control group from the day of vaccination. The number needed to treat to avoid one case is large and severe side effects are quite common, it could very easily be killing more frail elderly people than it’s saving.
Do you seriously think this vaccine has killed thousands of 80 year olds? Not mathematically possible. Do you seriously thing COVID hasn’t killed 10s of thousands of 80 year olds (even if the numbers are exaggerated). There’s skeptical, and then there’s paranoid.
The short answer is we don’t know. These are vaccines with more than their fair share of nasty side effects and they have a large number needed to treat in order to prevent one COVID death. What you would hope to see in a situation like that is all-cause mortality data for elderly subjects from the day of vaccination, against a control group, so that people can make a rational choice.
In any case, even if the vaccines turn out to work well, it’s going to take a long, long time for them to show net benefit after all the devastation and death that the vaccine promoters have caused through their lockdown/mask marketing theatre and banning/sidelining of effective prophylactics and treatments in order to funnel people into taking the vaccines. Without the vaccine promoters, many of those 10s of thousands of 80 year olds who died of COVID would likely still be alive today.
“There’s not much doubt that vaccinating 80 year olds will have a net benefit. “
On what basis do you make that magisterial judgment? Perhaps you can quote detailed absolute risk reduction figures that I have missed???
I have a massive doubt. But I don’t take much notice of government propaganda, and prefer hard data.
In which case they all need to be suspended from use.
Soooo Sceptical.
I’m sceptical of their scepticism.
Well, ain’t that convenient?
Seems to me like this site has gone from a place for people to find real science and to discuss data into a pretty average, nondescript news site.
BBC of course fails to mention that this “study” has not been peer reviewed and the methodology is dodgy.
To repeat : the known issue of blood clots, per se, is a minor risk in the context of all side-effects. It’s that overall picture that is concerning, particularly the very large number of under-reported immediate unpleasant reactions.
Don’t get trapped into the converse of the BBC’s constant Scary Fairy stuff. It distorts the real case.
The lack of overall risk reduction is the major issue in terms of decision making.
Well you’ve really plumbed the depths here Will, reporting so uncritically on an obvious smoke and mirrors job by a team of fellow Oxford researchers. As others have pointed out, this is not a valid comparison.
If you are a healthy 40 year mother of two children, the relevant comparison is between your risk of getting this rare blood clot condition (a) caused by the vaccine as opposed to (b) after being infected with Covid.
This “research” tells us nothing about that and consequently should not be treated with such respect by this august site. In fact it should be ridiculed for not making that comparison.
Couldn’t care less, not taking any of them. Don’t need it.
I just got an email from the Telegraph chief editor championing the ‘vaccine’, almost in perfect harmony with LS in arguing it is responsible for reducing deaths/cases (ignoring the seasonal pattern).
As noted earlier today, my family friend died yesterday, less than a week after getting jab – I don’t believe it’s a coincidence but I’m waiting to hear back about the specifics of his death.
The Yellow Card system with its undoubtedly under-reported stats, show almost 800 people have died as a consequence of this drug. I reckon this is probably a fraction of the real figure due to lack of awareness of the Y/C system.
If the reported death toll from the vaccine were only “a fraction of the real figure” then the number pf people taking the vaccine would decline because more and more people would know someone who have died.
A relatively small number of deaths can be hidden from the public – but if the numbers higher word gets around.
I don’t think a death-count of just under 800 people is a small number for a so-called vaccine which is supposed to save lives rather than take them. And I stand by my belief that the Yellow Card system will have under-reported cases. I for one had never heard of it until this madness started and only know about it because I take the time to research stuff that the ordinary Joe don’t care about because it’s not on the BBC/Sky/ITV/ad infinitum.
“I don’t think a death-count of just under 800 people is a small number”
It’s meaningless without context – the point we should all be making after criticizing the BBC for using the same context-less numbers.
800 is a very small proportion of the total number of people who have been vaccinated – and that assumes all 800 deaths were actually caused by the vaccine.
And I stand by my belief that the Yellow Card system will have under-reported cases.
Many of the milder side effects will be under-reported but this will be less of an issue for death numbers.
Deaths reported on the Y/C system are when the person dies very soon after the jab. Can you, or anybody else be sure the people who die a week or two (or more) afterwards did not die from the jab?
Regarding the 800 figure – again, that is just under 800 people who have died from being injected with chemicals that was supposed to save their lives. I’m amazed you can’t seem to recognise that this is a tremendous scandal!
The risk of death from the vaccine appears to be approximately 1 in 45,000 judging by the Yellow Card data and the current number of vaccinated people.
As a healthy man in my early 50s, my risk of death from COVID-19 is about 1 in 10,000.
So for me the vaccine is a whole quarter of the risk of the virus.
I’m sorry, but that’s simply not good enough, for a supposedly safe pharmaceutical product being rolled out to the whole population.
The mass injection programme is not being managed as a clinical study.
The reporting of adverse events is purely voluntary. Patients, relatives, and doctors, have been told, ad infinitum, that the injections are safe. Thus, when something bad happens, if it’s the sort of thing regarded as a normal, though unpleasant, part of life, such as a heart attack or stroke, it’s far from certain anyone will invest his time in filing a “vaccine” event report.
It’s not just deaths. A friend of mine came theough covid last october, simikar to a week of flu and has now been in ICU for four weeks, initially on a ventilator and now with a tracheostomy, after having the AZ jab.
I wonder how many of the people who have died or have had a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine are those who have already had the virus.
“Researchers at the University of Oxford who are not linked to the vaccine…”
They may not be directly linked but the university as a whole has received $208million in grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over the past decade and he has more than a casual interest in the success of the vaccination programme.
Smells like Big Pharma and their shills are trying to scare people from using a rival vaccine.
I’m not taking any Covid related vaccine regardless. Rather than post PR pieces for Big Pharma I’d prefer it if LS did a breakdown of the yellow card data personally.
This is all you need to read to realise this study is totally meaningless :
“The scientists warned that all comparisons must be interpreted cautiously since data are still accruing and drawn from different sources. They added that their research was unable to determine the relative risk of developing CVT after vaccination due to uncertainty around the baseline rate for this condition.
Nor did the study address the incidence rate of thrombocytopenia in COVID-19 patients and people who had been vaccinated. This condition, where a patient presents abnormally low levels of platelets, has been detected alongside CVT in the cases of concern reported to date”
Limited data, no base line, don’t even bother to look for a specific condition in vaccinated subjects… this is totally crap science that would get a a C- if not a resubmit in an undergraduate assignment. It greatly disappoints me that this site is peddling such poor quality information – something that seems to be happening more often.
So if you feel that you aren’t at risk from covid, would it be mad to risk getting a blood clot. The whole thing seems like coercion to get ID through. They’ve tried before and failed and it looks as if the plan is to do it this way and have an actual reason for ID
There is a function in the natural sciences. On a beach you have a few big boulders, lots of rocks, huge numbers of pebbles and mind numbingly large numbers of sand grains. It is a log-linear relationship which holds for asteroid sizes, crater sizes on the moon etc.
We know there is some probability of ‘going to hospital and being diagnosed as having brain clots’. It is quite small. There will be a higher number who get smaller clots that clear up or whose effects aren’t immediately evident. There will be even larger numbers who get lots of mini-clots. What that does who knows. I’m not an expert on clotting but I do know ‘the tip of the iceberg’ when I see it. It’s only been 6 months and we are learning about these vaccines every day.
Plus they’ve been licensed under ’emergency measures’ only and trials not complete until 2024, so it all sounds dubious anyway. We’ve always taken responsibility for our own bad/or good health in the past, and I am under no illusions to think that they care about my health now.
WHICH COUNTRIES HAVE SUSPENDED THE ASTRAZENECA VACCINE?
NOT SUSPENDED
SUSPENDED FOR UNDER-30s
SUSPENDED FOR UNDER-55s
SUSPENDED FOR UNDER-60s
SUSPENDED FOR UNDER-65s
SUSPENDED FOR UNDER-70s
SUSPENDED FOR ALL AGES
It’s fair to say there is some disagreement between European Nations on the risk/benefit of the AZ vaccine. Unsurprising for a novel vaccine undergoing early tests. I’m most likely to trust Sweden on this.
Firstly how many of those confirmed cases of covid are
Sorry. Pressed post comment too soon. Was meant to read.. Firstly how many of those confirmed cases of covid are PCR confirmed? And at what cycle of magnification? That matters because some of them will be blood clots WITHOUT Covid but presenting as Covid. Secondly, of the vaccinated, how many are also former covid cases who have since been vaccinated? I would moot that the devil is in that particular detail. Because being vaccinated if you already had a severe reaction to covid carries extra risk according to several doctors I’ve seen reading about recently. Thirdly, WTAF? These researchers are from Oxford but they have no association with the vaccine? What, the ChadOx vaccine? Their employer is in receipt of millions of dollars ($148,000,000 approx since 2015), of funding from the Gates Foundation who actively intervened to team AZ up with the initially philanthropic Oxford university researchers to speed up vaccine production? Even if not one single one of those researchers received a single penny from a global vaccine health advocate of the wealth and influence of Gates, there is no way that they are not being influenced by that money, or the effect that it’s withdrawal will have on… Read more »
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that more than 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are being pushed into poverty by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”
BBC no less!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56662724
That’s a pretty terrible study for methodology and data sources.
What it doesn’t attempt to do and this article doesn’t make clear is it isn’t looking at the relative risk with age.
There’s absolutely no point using whole population background averages for an effect that might well be present far more in certain demographics only (in this case, the younger).
Seem to be no attempt to match demographics or normalise the data in any way, shape or form.
A study needs to be done with age demographics and comparing to (i) their background rate in THAT group and also (ii) their chance of first catching and then suffering from covid related incidents. It doesn’t attempt to do that at all.
They’re really not doing themselves any favours if a study of this low quality is being used to reassure people or judge risk.
Whoever wrote and then agreed to release this report needs putting away for a long time for crimes against humanity.
CVT from covid happens in the ‘at risk’ group, that is what the virus does.
What the hell do these experts think the ‘so-called vaccines’ do? They mimic the spike on the virus that causes the clots. So guess what, the vaccines cause clots. And as all the vaccines do this ( the only difference between mRNA and AZ/Johnson is the delivery system to the cells) they will all cause clots.
All we have seen so far is early stages of this, with a few deaths. But these spike protein factories in cells can’t be turned off they keep going and no-one knows which cells, some will be in the brain. So over time this is going to get worse and worse.
This is exactly what the basis of the open letter to the EMA was about.
Then you get these idiots, I use the word advisedly, at Oxford putting out this report. They need locking up and throwing away the key!
What is this fixation with blood clots? Is it perhaps a distraction from the 69 and 87 page lists of different yellow card reported side effects for the Pfizer and AZ “vaccines”, respectively? They each read like a horror story.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/978316/050421_PF_DAP.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/978315/050421_AZ_DAP.pdf
Many good arguments below, especially that you cannot compare the true incidence of CSV after C-19 in this selected population. The circulated figure in MSM of 10 times more CSV after normal C-19 infection is grossly wrong but there is more complications of CSV after normal C-19 infection ( of course the spike protein is involved in nature as well as in the vaccine side effect) but more likely in line with Berenson’s estimation double risk after C-19 compared with background rate. But there are problems with the 12 cases below 60 years in this study. First 3 of the 20(all age groups) had CSV also before the new one during C-19, this could knock down the 12 cases further. Then the statement in the article that arteriosclerosis, stenosis, cardiovascular disease predisposes to CSV normally. How many could have had that below 60? These are obese unhealthy Americans so possible a few more knocking down the 12. In the end fewer than the 12 under 60 in previously fit would have had CSV during C-19 infection. Not going into the unsound practice in the US of extra money for C-19 diagnosis. There are no data how they recorded of the diagnosis of C-19… Read more »
A further observation is that the COVID-19 patients in the study are drawn from a “federated electronic health records network recording anonymised data from healthcare organisations, primarily in the USA”. This suggests they are hospital patients, or at least those who have sought medical assistance, and so are not representative of all Covid infections but only the more serious. This contrasts to the vaccinated group, which is the healthy population as a whole, albeit with more vulnerable groups often vaccinated first. This may skew the comparison considerably, making blood clots among those infected with Covid appear much more common than they are.
Good call Will!
The paper is interesting but in essence does not address the issue of vaccination vs covid in the under 40’s. It also is not realistic in the groupings who have influenza vaccination etc are not those who are now being urged to have covid vaccinations.:
It is not appropriate to group generalised infection mortality figures or use retrospective data about rare medical pathologies in sort term retrospective analysis.
The question for the population is. Can politicians mandate a vaccination be given to a specific cohort of patients. If it is of proven benefit eg MMR etc then it is straight forward, but if it is to provide protection for others not the individual then it is very perilous -it is certainly of ethical concern in minors.
“No worse than others”: is your glass half full or half empty?
Re: cost of tests
This is a fundamental point that lawyers should get on to: ALL COMPULSORY COSTS NEED TO BE PAID BY THE GOVERNMENT. That includes masks as well as PCR tests and anything and everything that anyone is FORCED to do by government. Otherwise, it is a stealth tax.