This is story in the Daily Mail about people in the UK who died, or were injured by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. [1] There was a problem with blood clots.
According to lawyers 81 people died. I don’t know how reliable that figure is. Clearly some people died.
The Daily Mail asked AstraZeneca for a response to the story and they got this:
Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile, and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side-effects.
This is one of those slippery statements which isn’t not true but, at the same time, is somewhat less than honest.
In fact the regulatory response to AstraZeneca’s covid vaccine was rather mixed. At one point Ireland suspended it due to the blood clots problem. [2] Other European countries also paused its use in younger people. [3] The UK’s MHRA at one point recommended not using AstraZeneca for people under 30. [4]
Of course; there was a lot riding on this. The prestige of Britain’s Oxford University and post-Brexit bid to be a “world-leader” at something. The interests not just of AstraZeneca but the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. And, to be fair, the need to avoid a disaster which would damage public trust in vaccines in general. In the end they decided that casualties in the dozens was an acceptable price to pay. Given that for people under the age of 70 Sars-Cov-2 (during the first phases of the pandemic) was no more dangerous than flu this decision may be seen to be a bit questionable. [5]
Notes
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13100653/We-arent-anti-vaxxers-just-want-justice-loved-ones-died-getting-AstraZeneca-Covid-vaccine.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/world/astrazeneca-ireland.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/06/ema-denies-already-finding-causal-link-astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clots
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ema-astrazeneca-vaccine-1.5977872 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56665517
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36731922/ – this is not the best article to support this claim. I came across the information/claim first in a BMJ article which I now can’t find on the Internet. (Probably my suspicious mind but some things seem hard to find, especially off-narrative points). But this report supports my claim that for those under 70 Covid was, in general, not more dangerous than flu. (Does not establish).