Vaccine Safety Update

This is the 18th 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 17th 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 being double vaccinated “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.

Israel has begun giving the Covid vaccine to 5-11 year olds, while a Sussex NHS trust has produced a leaflet encouraging 12-15 year olds to get vaccinated (with no need to tell their parents). The Telegraph recently ran an analysis showing the limited impact of the virus on children.
In Australia, a senator has called for the immediate suspension of child vaccinations following the death of a 14 year old girl.
Taiwan has halted the Pfizer jab for 12-17 year-olds following concerns about myocarditis.
An American journal has published a paper discussing myocarditis after Covid vaccination in adolescents. Steve Kirsch reports that the CDC has failed to analyse why 14 children died following their Covid vaccine.
A German report claims a teenage boy died three days after his Covid vaccine.
New VAERS analysis by Albert Benavides has revealed hundreds of adverse reactions not previously reported.
New U.K. data shows that more than 2,500 double vaccinated over-50s have died from COVID-19 in the past month in England.
One Colorado school had to be closed due to adverse reactions to the booster jab among teachers and staff.
A group of people who have experienced adverse reactions to the vaccines in the U.S. have set up an independent website to report their stories.
The FDA’s approval document for the Pfizer vaccine suggests that myocarditis from the jab might be a bigger threat than Covid.
Expert group PANDA (Pandemic Data & Analysis) has asked the British Society of Immunology to amend its messaging as it is not representative of the data available on COVID-19 or immunology in general.
A study has examined menstrual changes following vaccination.
A research study has shown that the spike protein might impede adaptive immunity, findings which the authors say “underscore the potential side effects of full-length spike-based vaccines”.
Dozens of people have been left suffering with SIRVA – shoulder injury related to vaccine administration – after their coronavirus vaccines, the Metro reports.
Twenty-three year-old Italian football player Vittoria Campo died two months after her 25 year-old brother Alessandro, both of a heart attack. Both had been vaccinated, Alessandro only a few days prior to his death.
VAERS – the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – released new data on November 5th bringing the total to 875,653 reports of adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 18,461 deaths and 135,400 serious injuries.
DAEN Australia – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system – has logged (up to October 31st) 77,617 reports of adverse events, including 633 deaths.
Children (Under 18) Adverse Events UK – up to November 3rd, MHRA report a total of 1,736 adverse event reports, comprising 1,492 Pfizer, 233 AstraZeneca (with a reporting rate of 1 Yellow Card per 49 doses), 5 Moderna and 6 unspecified. Myocarditis reports are 9 in a million doses for this age group (suggesting approximately 20 cases to date from the 2,164,620 doses administered so far). No information is provided on fatalities.
Booster Doses – up to November 3rd, a total of 5,566 adverse events have been reported across all vaccines.

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report published on November 11th, the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,261,714 events based on 383,644 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,766: 1,118 with AstraZeneca, 597 with Pfizer, 19 with Moderna, 32 unspecified. (Note: updated dose counts were not available in this week’s MHRA report so figures based on dose counts have been omitted in this update. All other data has been updated.)

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.