Rare, dangerous side effects of some Covid-19 vaccines explained

https://www.science.org/content/article/rare-dangerous-side-effects-some-covid-19-vaccines-explained

by epistasis • 5 months ago

34 7 5 months ago

mhitza• 5 months ago

vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT)
According to the European Medicines Agency, about 900 VITT cases have been reported after immunization with the AstraZeneca or J&J vaccines in Europe, including 200 deaths. Few data are available about the rest of the world, even though more than 3 billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were administered globally.
It’s not clear whether the syndrome was rarer outside Europe or whether cases were missed. In most parts of the world, between 40% and 60% of the population has the genetic background that makes people more prone to VITT, but in East Asia the prevalence is only 20%. Other factors, too, might contribute to the rare cases when they happen.

This is such a crazy fact. I didn't know the AstraZeneca was administered at that scale. I remember the quick switch to the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine previsely as precautionary because of the AstraZeneca shot. Our (Romanian) army personal was mostly the one subjected to this vaccine.

drq• 5 months ago

Yes, I received two doses of AZ. My wife, who has thrombophilia, received both doses of Pfizer, as her case was deemed too risky for AZ.

I had a fever in both cases for almost a day after the shot, my wife had no side effects. None.

salodeus• 5 months ago

It seems that AstraZenaca has become a scapegoat for Pharmaceutical companies, so people can say "oh it was just that one bad vaccine with one rare side effect."

epistasis• 5 months ago

Could you expand on this a bit? I don't think that AstraZeneca has suffered any reputational damage from this, it's an extremely rare event that took broad monitoring to even discover. 200 documented deaths in what are likely hundreds of millions of doses is the type of thing that speaks to a very robust medical monitoring system.

"oh it was just that one bad vaccine with one rare side effect."

What do reference by the "it" here? There were 1.2 million COVID deaths in the US alone which seems like the most notable "it" to reference but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the sentence.

bulbar• 5 months ago

Most likely a lot of medication you have taken in your live have a low probability to kill you. It's just virtually no other class of medication/vaccine has the same degree of monitoring in place so we can't even measure such rare events.

In comparison, back then I looked up the typical all cause death probability within a year for the age group 20-40 (in Germany) and it turns out, getting covid19 without vaccine increases that by 700%.

A relative increase of a very small number is still very small number. However, worse then astrazenaca and the 700% that's only death, there's a lot that is not deadly but still very bad.

The involved risks with astrazenaca makes taking it - compared to no vaccine at all - a no brainer in comparison.

KevinMS• 5 months ago

This is getting flagged?

drukenemo• 5 months ago

Of course, because this is a democratic place for open discussion (irony)

Rare, dangerous side effects of some Covid-19 vaccines explained

Related Stories