Vaccine Safety Update

This is the second of the weekly round-ups of Covid vaccine safety reports and news compiled by a group of medical doctors who are monitoring developments but prefer to remain anonymous in the current climate (find the first one here). By no means is this part of an effort to generate alarm about the vaccines or dissuade anyone from getting inoculated. It should be read in conjunction with Lockdown Sceptics‘ other posts on vaccines, which include both encouraging and not so encouraging developments. At Lockdown Sceptics we report all news about the vaccines whether positive or negative and give no one advice about whether they should or should not be taken. Unlike with lockdowns, we are neither pro-vaccine nor anti-vaccine; we see our job as to report the facts, not advocate for or against a particular policy. The vaccine technology is novel and the vaccines have not yet fully completed their trials, which is why they’re in use under temporary and not full market authorisation. This has been done on account of the emergency situation and the trial data was largely encouraging on both efficacy and safety. For a summary of that data, see this preamble to the Government’s page on the Yellow Card reporting system. We publish information and opinion to inform public debate and help readers come to their own conclusions about what is best for them, based on the available data.

News Round-up

The U.S. CDC is investigating several dozen reports of heart inflammation in teenagers and young adults after receipt of the Covid mRNA vaccines, reports the New York Times
According to the India Times, heart attacks and strokes are the leading causes of death among vaccine recipients
A study in the journal Cureus claims there’s a link between receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine and the onset of Type 2 Diabetes
America’s Frontline Doctors has done a cost/benefit analysis of the Pfizer vaccine
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, The Society of Acute Medicine and Royal College of Physicians have released guidance on treating blood clots caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine
According to articles in the BMJ and the Telegraph, there are still concerns about giving the Covid vaccines to Children. The AstraZeneca trial involving children and teens has been suspended following fears of blood clots. HART has petitioned Parliament not to give Covid vaccines to children until Phase 3 Trials are complete
In the U.S., the FDA has given approval for children to receive the Pfizer vaccination following recommendations from the CDC ACIP Committee
An article in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Transplantation addresses key concerns about COVID-19 vaccines (pre-print)
Three people have died in Scotland from what are believed to be side effects of the vaccines, as reported by the BBC and Telegraph
The BMJ and the UN have both published advice about how to counteract “vaccine hesitancy”, acknowledging that “when you look at hesitancy and parental vaccine hesitancy in the U.S., the group who is most likely to purposefully choose to not vaccinate are highly educated. In speaking with them, these are people who have read the primary literature themselves, and they’re correctly interpreting it, so it’s not a misunderstanding.” (p.26 of the UN Guide to Covid Vaccine Communications)
EudraVigilance – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system in the EU – has logged reports claiming 10,570 people have died and 405,259 have suffered injuries following receipt of the vaccine in the EU up to May 8th
VAERS – the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – has logged reports claiming 5,888 have died from vaccine side effects in the U.S. since 1990, of which 4,196 (71%) are linked to Covid vaccines administered in the last five months

Summary of Adverse Events UK

According to an updated report published on May 20th (covering the period up to May 12th), the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 822,078 events, based on 235,223 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,178.

Key Summary of Adverse Events (for full table see below)

Acute Cardiac events = 8,858
Anaphylaxis = 946
Blood Disorders = 11,409
Migraine = 7,547
Eye Disorders = 12,762
Blindness = 212
Psychiatric Disorders = 15,926
Spontaneous Abortions/Miscarriage= 135
Abdominal Pain = 9,346
Facial Paralysis incl. Bell’s Palsy = 915
Disturbances in Consciousness = 10,874
Strokes and CNS haemorrhages = 1605
Guillain Barre Syndrome = 253
Tremor = 9,404
Thrombosis & Embolism (All types) = 4,347
Seizures = 1,786
Paralysis = 668
Haemorrhage (All types) = 2,616
Vertigo/Tinnitus (Inner Ear) = 5,391
Reproductive/Breast = 5,099

Adverse Event Analysis

Pfizer now has one Yellow Card in 355 doses, 2.9 adverse reactions (i.e., symptoms) per card, one fatal reaction in 55,080 doses. AstraZeneca has one Yellow Card in 188 doses, 3.7 adverse reactions per card, one fatal reaction in 41,858 doses. Moderna has one Yellow Card in 137 doses, 2.9 adverse reactions per card, one fatal reaction in 50,000 doses.

Moderna at the moment has reporting rate even worse than AstraZeneca. A point of note is that the Pfizer product always ends up with an average of 2.86 adverse events per card – not only was it the same this week but Moderna also had the same figure of 2.86.

Yellow Card Reports Summary

Source: Pfizer; Moderna; Astrazeneca; Unspecified. “F” denotes fatal.