I’m often astonished how the media tease sensational headlines from trivia, while they ignore the elephant in the room. And so it is with Covid vaccines.
In April 2021, the European Medicines Agency’s safety committee declared that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as very rare side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine from Astra-Zeneca.
The Committee reviewed 62 cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 24 cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis reported in the EU drug safety database by22 March 2021. In this total of 86 cases, 18 were fatal. Given the millions of doses of this vaccine administered so far, the risk of these adverse events is very small.
It’s difficult to compare the adverse events of this vaccine to other vaccines in common use, since cause and effect are generally difficult to establish with accuracy. So I checked a couple of drugs in widespread use for Adverse Events to put the blood clots in perspective, and this is what I found:
‘Daily Aspirin Linked To More Than 3,000 Deaths Per Year, Scientists Warn.’ This was the headline in the Huffpost in 2017. People have long been advised to take daily-low dose aspirin to prevent blood clots. The Oxford Vascular Study, which recruited over 3,000 participants, found that people aged 75 and over with a history of heart attacks or strokes were at the highest risk of death from low-dose aspirin.
A retrospective analysis of data on paracetamol‐related exposures, hospital admissions, and deaths found that between 2007 and 2016, there were 95,668 admissions with paracetamol poisoning. Some 200 deaths were registered, and over 1800 cases of Toxic Liver Disease. Paracetamol overdose is the most common cause of fulminant hepatic failure in the USA (40% of cases), and paracetamol overdose is by far and away the number one reason for liver transplants.
Aspirin and paracetamol are over-the-counter drugs, so what about prescription drugs? ‘Benzodiazepines (benzos) were involved in more drug-induced deaths in 2016 than heroin and methadone combined,’ the ABC reported, ‘but you would be hard-pressed to find any stories warning of their dangers on the front pages.
Aspirin and paracetamol are both over-the-counter drugs, so what about prescription drug? ‘Benzodiazepines were involved in more drug-induced deaths in 2016 than heroin and methadone combined,’ the ABC reported, ‘but you would be hard-pressed to find any stories warning of their dangers on the front pages.’ Deaths from opiods, heroin and methadone number around 20,000 a year in the USA. Valium and Xanax are popular benzos.
Prescription Drug Safety
The bigger picture is this: Misuse, under-use, overuse of, and reactions to therapeutic drugs alone result in 140,000 hospital admissions a year in Australia. The report at the link estimates that as many as 150,000 health care associated infections (in hospitals mostly) occur down under each year, some of these caused by Multi-drug-Resistant Organisms like golden staff. Infections with MROs are much more difficult to treat, and tend to have poorer outcomes for patients. More HERE.
Reliable data on deaths from prescription drugs are hard to come by in Australia, but US data suggest that every year 128,000 people die from drugs correctly prescribed to them.
Putting that number into perspective, deaths from correctly prescribed drugs in the USA exceed the combined number of deaths caused by traffic accidents, opioid-heroin-cocaine overdoses, homicides and firearms. Causes of death in the USA are:
We do have some much bigger problems in medicine than a few blood clots caused by vaccines. No doubt more adverse events will come to light over time but, for vaccines that were rushed into production, the current adverse events are surprisingly small in number.