Vaccine Safety Update

This is the 16th of the 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 15th 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 the Daily Sceptic‘s other posts on vaccines, which include both encouraging and not so encouraging developments. At the Daily Sceptic 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 in June 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.) Boris Johnson said in October that the vaccine “doesn’t protect you against catching the disease, and it doesn’t protect you against passing it on”. 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.

New Zealand researchers Aleisha Brock and Simon Thornley have published a peer-reviewed paper in Science, Public Health Policy, and the Law which reanalyses a key CDC study showing mRNA vaccines are safe during pregnancy and found that the actual rate of miscarriage before 20 weeks gestation following mRNA exposure was at least 81.9% – a massive seven-fold increase over the expected background rate of 11.3%. They have called for a halt on COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women.
The Brownstone Institute has collated 102 (and counting) research studies that “affirm naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19“.
An investigation found that 100% of deaths reported as adverse events from Covid vaccines were associated with just 5% of the vaccine batches, suggesting the most serious safety issues may be batch-related.
Covid vaccine damage sufferers have called for a review of the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme (VDPS), asking the Government to “overhaul the VDPS to make it more accessible, with payments based on need rather than an arbitrary figure”.
The Irish county of Waterford has the highest reported infection rate in the country despite 99.7% of adults being vaccinated.
TV presenter Lisa Snowdon has reported suffering from Covid a second time despite being double vaccinated, and she says it was worse.
The Government of New South Wales in Australia has said that workers will face tighter restrictions if they don’t get vaccinated.
EudraVigilance – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system in the EU – has logged (up to October 19th) 2,637,525 adverse events, including 28,103 deaths.
VAERS – the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – released new data on October 22nd bringing the total to 837,595 reports of adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 17,619 deaths and 127,457 serious injuries.
DAEN Australia – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system – has logged (up to October 19th) 70,355 reports of adverse events, including 608 deaths.
Children (Under 18) Adverse Events U.K. – up to October 20th, MHRA report a total of 1,458 adverse event reports, comprising 1,216 Pfizer, 233 AstraZeneca, 5 Moderna and 4 unspecified. Myocarditis reports are 9 in a million doses for this age group (suggesting approximately 18 cases to date from the 1,956,481 doses administered so far). No information is provided on fatalities.

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report published on October 28th, the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,243,998 events based on 378,074 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,738.

Pfizer (23.2 million first doses, 20.1 million second doses) now has one Yellow Card in 187 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 40,278 people vaccinated (576).
AstraZeneca (24.9 million first doses, 24.1 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 106 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 22,412 people vaccinated (1,111).
Moderna (1.5 million first doses, 1.3 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 83 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 75,000 people vaccinated (20).

Overall, one in every 131 people vaccinated (0.76%) have experienced a Yellow Card adverse event. The MHRA has previously estimated that the Yellow Card reporting rate may be approximately 10% of actual figures.

Note that sometimes in Yellow Card reporting, the numbers of adverse events (including fatalities) will be lower than the previous week. The Yellow Card system is a passive reporting system, so in theory this should not happen as all reports should be cumulative. However, the MHRA say they analyse the data prior to publication, with deaths and pregnancy conditions being notably investigated. They do not state criteria by which reports would be removed and to date have not clarified why this data varies. It is therefore unclear how many reported adverse events have been removed from the reports since reporting began in February 2021.