Come on Pfizer and Moderna

Lane Simonian

Why don't we still know the number of people at risk for clotting from the coronavirus vaccines and why don't we know who is at risk for these adverse side effects.  Here is part of the answer:

Pfizer and Moderna executives declined the offer [from Johnson and Johnson to investigate clotting events], saying their vaccines appeared safe, the people said.  The pair also objected because they didn’t see the need to duplicate the efforts of regulators and companies already looking for blood-clot cases and investigating the cause, the people said.  One company’s concern: The safety of the Pfizer ad Moderna shots could be tarnished by association, some people said.

Only AztraZeneca, which had been buffeted by similar blood-clotting concerns for weeks, agreed, people said.

Part of the difference here is that Johnson & Johnson and AztraZeneca did not produce their vaccines for profit whereas Pfizer and Moderna did.  They are thus unwilling to acknowledge the following:

According to recent research from Oxford University, recipients of AstraZeneca have a five per million chance of developing blood clots compared to four per million for Pfizer and Moderna. Meanwhile, the risk of blood clots from contracting COVID is around 8–10 times higher at 39 per million.

In Norway, the clotting cases are 1 in 40,000 perhaps because they have a better reporting system (which would be 25 in a million).

One of the reasons that Pfizer and Moderna have been let off the hook by U.S. public health authorities is that it allowed these authorities to address the problem of vaccine hesitancy caused by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by directing them to Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines instead.  It was o.k. to throw one vaccine producer under the bus but not all three of them.

One could argue that it was all right not to fully inform individuals of the clotting risks from all the major vaccines, so as not to cause more deaths as a result of vaccine hesitancy.  But for those who lost their lives as a result of the vaccines and for their families and really for everyone, it is more important to tell the truth.

Donr

Are the numbers for male and females or is this just one particular gender?

Joe C.

The study from Germany below show no incidents of CVT from Moderna. (Note: Pfizer is not approved or administer in Germany so not included in this study).

 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.30.21256383v1

Lane Simonian

Of the 28 cases identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in the United States 22 were found in women and 6 in men.

Here was one of the earlier stories linking (or potentially linking) the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to rare clotting problems.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/health/immune-thrombocytopenia-covid-vaccine-blood.html

My guess is that all of these vaccines by producing spike proteins (and the subsequent antibodies against these proteins) are causing platelet depletion and clotting in particular individuals.  My second guess is that individuals with autoimmune diseases are more likely to experience these problems than the general population.  I would like to hear this (or not hear) this from the experts, though.

Crushed

Joe C. wrote:

The study from Germany below show no incidents of CVT from Moderna. (Note: Pfizer is not approved or administer in Germany so not included in this study).

 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.30.21256383v1

IM sorry but that is Nonsense  Background document on mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) against COVID-19 
look in your study 
We aimed to estimate the frequency of CVT and other cerebrovascular events after vaccination with BNT162b2, ChAdOx1, and mRNA-1273, 114 German Departments of Neurology participated in a systematic survey.

 BNT162 b2 is  the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine  (BNT)

  Which vaccines are available? 

Most of the vaccines administered in Germany are produced by BioNTech-Pfizer, with a smaller proportion of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines available.  https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-germany-to-let-everyone-apply-for-vaccine-by-june/a-57336653

Marta

The article cited by Joe/Crushed was not peer reviewed.

Joe C.

Crushed, Thank you for the correction. I did not recognize the BNT162b2 as the technical name for the Pfizer vaccine and should have confirmed this before making that statement. My apologies.