Vaccine Safety Update

This is the 32nd 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 31st 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 was 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.

Baroness Heather Hallett has outlined the key areas under scrutiny in the forthcoming pandemic public enquiry, including side-effects from the Covid vaccines and a focus on children.
A study has found thyroid eye disease reactivation associated with COVID-19 vaccination.
Dr. Eddy Bettermann discusses reports of blindness linked to Covid vaccination.
A study has found young girls developed genital ulcers after receiving Pfizer’s Covid vaccine.
A doctor says he has seen “many, many, many complications in pregnant women, in mums and in foetuses, in children, offspring, foetal death, miscarriage, death of the foetus inside the mom – what I’ve seen in the last two years is unprecedented”.
A risk-benefit analysis by Doctors for Covid Ethics of the use of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in children and adolescents has found that the vaccines are not necessary, have not proven efficacious and have not been proven safe.
An American paediatrician has written an open letter calling for an immediate halt to Covid vaccines for children.
An investigation has been launched in Scotland following a second spike in the number of newborn baby deaths, with at least 18 babies under four weeks old dying in March, a rate of 4.6 per 1,000 births.
West Midlands Ambulance Trust has recorded a 74% rise in cardiac arrest emergency calls in 2022 compared to 2019.
Dr. Tess Lawrie has written about the experiences of those injured by Covid vaccines.
Eudravigilance – the European version of the Yellow Card Reporting system – as of May 21st has reported 4,355,070 reactions from 1,802,670 reports of which 1,974,083 were deemed as serious. 44,850 fatal reactions were reported with an approximate actual number of deaths being 14,400. This is due to a 3.11 reporting rate in fatalities across multiple reactions.
VAERS – the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – as of May 20th reports a total of 1,268,008 reports of adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 28,141 deaths and 231,975 serious injuries. For children up to the age of 17 there have been 48,833 reports, of which 4,479 were deemed serious and 117 fatalities.
DAEN Australia – the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system – has logged (up to May 10th) 127,419 reports of adverse events, including 852 deaths.
Children (Under 18) Adverse Events U.K. – up to May 11th, the MHRA reports a total of 4,048 adverse event reports, comprising 3,729 Pfizer, 263 AstraZeneca, 29 Moderna and 27 unspecified from 3,813,700 children vaccinated with 6,327,300 doses. This includes 79 reported cases with Pfizer of myocarditis/pericarditis, suggesting a current reported risk of 14 cases per million first doses and 11 per million second doses for this age group.
Booster Doses – 49,487 adverse events have been reported across all vaccines up to the present from 39,474,656 people vaccinated.

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report, as of April May 11th the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,492,541 events based on 455,990 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 2,140.

Pfizer (26.8 million first doses) now has one Yellow Card in 157 people vaccinated. Deaths: one in 34,941 people vaccinated (767).
AstraZeneca (24.9 million first doses) has one Yellow Card in 102 people vaccinated. Deaths: one in 19,575 people vaccinated (1,272).
Moderna (1.7 million first doses) has one Yellow Card in 44 people vaccinated. Deaths: one in 36,170 people vaccinated (47).

Overall, one in every 117 people vaccinated (0.85%) have experienced a Yellow Card adverse event. Reported adverse events are not necessarily caused by the vaccine and further investigation is required to establish causality. 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 says it analyses the data prior to publication, with deaths and pregnancy conditions being notably investigated. It does not state criteria by which reports would be removed and to date has not clarified why these data vary. It is therefore unclear how many reported adverse events have been removed from the reports since reporting began in February 2021.