Vaccine Safety Update

This is the eighth 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 seventh 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 the news about the vaccines whether positive or negative and give no one advice about whether they should or should not take them. Unlike with lockdowns, we are neither pro-vaccine nor anti-vaccine; we see our job as reporting the facts, not advocating 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. (Dr Tess Lawrie recently wrote an open letter to Dr June Raine, head of the MHRA, arguing that: “The MHRA now has more than enough evidence on the Yellow Card system to declare the COVID-19 vaccines unsafe for use in humans,” a claim that has been “fact checked” here.) We publish information and opinion to inform public debate and help readers reach their own conclusions about what is best for them, based on the available data.

Correspondence in the BMJ from nurse Marco T. Suadoni calculating that, as far as vaccinating the under-25s is concerned, “for every single prevention of a hospital admission, at least 22 to 23 individuals will experience at least one serious adverse event”.
Article in the Telegraph quoting JCVI member Professor Robert Dingwall suggesting that it is safer to let children catch COVID-19 than vaccinate them.
UKMFA has written an open letter requesting that informed consent be properly addressed at vaccination centres.
The peer-reviewed paper in Vaccines that we mentioned recently claiming that two deaths result from COVID-19 vaccinations for every three deaths prevented has been retracted by the journal, citing serious concerns with the use of adverse event data. The paper’s authors have issued a statement in which they say: “The true reason seems to have been pressure on the part of some editors of the journal,” and “The timeline suggests that the journal was not really interested in our response and that our response was irrelevant to the retraction”.
Report of a blood clotting death following Moderna vaccination.
Newsweek reports that the CDC is investigating the death of a 13 year-old Michigan boy in his sleep days after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
EudraVigilance – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system in the EU – has logged reports claiming 16,535 people have died and 1,750,275 have suffered injuries following receipt of the Covid vaccines in the EU.
VAERS – the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – released new data bringing the total to 441,931 reports of adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 6,985 deaths and 34,065 serious injuries between December 14th 2020 and June 25th 2021.

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report published on July 1st (covering the period up to June 23rd), the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,007,253 events, based on 298,081 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,403.

Pfizer: 18 million first doses, 11 million second doses.
AstraZeneca: 24.5 million first doses, 20.7 million second doses.
Moderna: 0.88 million first doses.

Key events analysis:

Acute Cardiac Events = 11,190
Anaphylaxis = 1,203
Herpes = 3,553
BCG scar reactivation = 72
Headaches = 98,860
Migraine = 9,363
Blindness = 310
Spontaneous Abortions + stillbirth = 271 + 12
Vomiting = 13,691
Facial Paralysis incl. Bell’s Palsy = 1,270
Strokes and CNS haemorrhages = 2,141
Guillain-Barré Syndrome = 360
Dizziness = 29,921
Tremor = 10,433
Thrombosis & Embolism = 5,617
- Pulmonary Embolism – 262 (Pfizer), 1337 (AZ), 4 (Moderna), 6 (Unknown) = 1,609
- Deep Vein Thrombosis – 170 (Pfizer), 997 (AZ), 2 (Moderna), 7 (Unknown) = 1,176
Nosebleeds = 2,659
Seizures = 2,404
Paralysis = 868
Haemorrhage (All types)) = 5,145
- Haemorrhage types: cardiac, ear, adrenal, eye, gastric, mouth, tongue, gums, intestinal, injection site, brain, wounds, stoma, bladder, kidney, uterine, ovarian, penile, lung, nasal
Vertigo/Tinnitus = 7,687
Reproductive/Breast – 6,646 (Pfizer) + 10,689 (AZ) + 845 (Moderna) + 48 (Unknown) = 18,228 (50% increase in one week)