Seriously Adverse Side Effects : COVID Vaccines

A COVID-19 vaccination centre at Winnipeg's Convention Centre on January 1, 2021. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)

"VITT [vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia, a rare blood clotting phenomenon linked to AstraZeneca and J&J, adenoviral vector vaccines] can be very persistent and malignant."

"It just can get worse and worse, and sometimes people end up with very bad outcomes, including death." 

"[It is one scenario] where I feel like we can say with confidence that this entity is causually related to the vaccine."

Dr.Donald Arnold, medical director, Platelet Immunology Laboratory, McMaster University

"There has been rapid communications of new adverse events related to new safety concerns."

"Really, the key there, when you have a fatal outcome is, what was the cause of death? What was the diagnosis, the condition, that led to the fatal outcome."]

"In a younger, healthy person who dies suddenly, that may be easy to tease out compared to someone who is very elderly and has a number of different conditions."

"Obviously, the physician who sees the patient is in the best position to say. People who die at home, that information may be more limited."

"[The bigger challenge is that] most of the conditions, pretty well all the conditions, that can occur with adverse events following vaccination can also be triggered by other things."

"It very, very rarely may be a higher risk with the AstraZeneca vaccine. For the most part,  health care providers are encouraged to report anything where they have a concern, regardless of the time interval."

Dr.Karina Top, infectious disease specialist, IWK Health Centre, Halifax

A tiny fraction of the thousands of Canadians who have received a COVID-19 vaccine have reported experiencing adverse reactions following the injection, according to new safety information published by Health Canada. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

 

An editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal outlined "robust" evidence to rebut claims that the anti-COVID vaccines are experimental or unsafe. They write that while the vaccine-resistant are free to decide not to be inoculated "they ought not to be free to refuse SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and to work as physicians". Serious reported "adverse events" are rare in the face of tens of millions of doses having been dispensed within Canada's population.

Among the serious reactions to the vaccines that have been reported anaphylaxis, if not recognized quickly enough and treated expeditiously can be fatal; it can occur in minutes of a hypodermic needle piercing skin. Vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, a rare blood clotting event, can also be fatal if not caught quickly through a diagnostic test checking for unusual antibodies against platelets the vaccine produces.

According to Health Canada, a serious adverse drug reaction is defined as a "noxious and unintended response to a drug" that can place someone in hospital, causes birth defects, disability or incapacity and can be life-threatening, or which ends in death. AEFI (Adverse Events Following Immunization) forms are filled out by doctors, nurses and pharmacists. Check boxes are included for reactions like "angoedema" (swelling of the tongue, throat, eyelids, face or lips) along with respiratory reactions such as wheezing or shortness of breath, along with other reactions such as gastrointenstinal problems 

Reports are important to data gathering, but they are not regarded as proof of causation. A total of 208 reports of deaths following a COVID-19 vaccine was reported through the Canadian Adverse Events Following Immunization Surveillance System (CAEFISS). Of the total, 79 deaths were deemed unlikely to be linked to a COVID vaccine, 82 deaths were absent enough information for an  assessment, and 47 remained under investigation. The blood clotting complication was implicated in seven of those deaths.

Nationally in Canada there were slightly over 22,200 reports of adverse reactions following immunization, out of the more than 59 million doses administered. Of the total, 5,653 were reported as serious, representing 0.010 percent of all doses given to the end of October. Two complications reported in higher numbers than normally expected were myocarditis and pericarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle and the lining of the heart following inoculation with a mRNA vaccine.

Over 423 million doses were administered in the United States from December 2020 to November 1st, 2021. In that time frame the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) had 9,367 reports of death representing 0.0022 percent of all administered doses. In the U.S. health-care providers are required to report any death following vaccination for COVID "even if it's unclear whether the vaccine was the cause".

In Britain, 1,739 reports of people who died following receipt of a COVID vaccine were recorded, the majority representing elderly people, or those with heart, kidney or other chronic health problems. "Review of individual reports and patterns of reporting does not suggest the vaccines played a role in these deaths", stated the summary of the reports. Over 107 million vaccine doses were administered in the United Kingdom.

People attend a COVID-19 mass vaccination clinic in Toronto in June. More than 59 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Canada. Nationally, as of Oct. 29, there had been just over 22,200 reports of adverse reactions following immunization; of those, 5,653 were reported as serious. Photo by Cole Burston/The Canadian Press