Canada pauses AZ vaccines for under 55s (and says women most at risk)

[Boringlynormal]

Please tell me this isn’t something to worry about: www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/canada-suspends-use-of-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-for-those-under-55

Speaking as a woman in her 30s who was immunised 4 days ago (article tells us the risk is for young women 4 - 20 days after vaccination), I’m panicking now. Yes I know it’s rare but so is dying of Covid in my age group so I’m wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake.

By the way I’m very pro vaccine and leapt on the chance to get one. I’m just feeling so anxious now.

@Sunshinegirl82

My understanding was that the particularly rare clotting event that has been identified as potentially linked was caused by low platelets and that symptoms included bruising etc and being very unwell? Pain in the calf seems more like a symptom of a DVT?

That's what she told me she was experiencing at the start and why I told her to go to A&E - at the time I didn't think it was related to the vaccine. After they didn't see anything in her calf she was sent home. Over the course of the week she started experiencing other symptoms until ultimately being admitted to the stroke ward with clot on her brain.

It would be good to know the age and sex of the people who developed these specific clots. The media keep stating calculations of risk based on the total number of doses given but if most of the cases are below a certain age eg 50 then we should really be looking at how many doses were given in that age range.

Exactly. I don’t understand why these stats aren’t being published. And the seven deaths only came to light because a journalist specifically asked for that information. It really does seem like a cover up.

@Schulte

Exactly. I don’t understand why these stats aren’t being published. And the seven deaths only came to light because a journalist specifically asked for that information. It really does seem like a cover up.

They recently found 25 more under the duvet once questions were asked too.

The age thing is important. It's no good to say 1 in a million get the clot if all cases are young women, and only 1 million young women have had it so far. We need a lot more information to truly understand the risks.

people realise it's 7 in 30 million right? Not 1 in a million. Which is a 0.00023% chance.

actually it is ? in ??? million

@NRCS How many doses have been given to under 55s in the U.K.? What age/sex are the people who developed the clots?

I really hope some investigative journalists out there are on the case...

But it's in the weekly report from the MHRA which is published online:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting

You can click through to the guidance issued by the British Society on Haematology which includes treatment guidelines.

There is also this interesting piece giving feedback on that report.

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-latest-weekly-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting-following-covid-19-vaccination-published-by-the-mhra-including-updated-numbers-of-cvst-and-other-thrombosis-events-with-low-platelets/

I'm not saying that these side effects are not linked to the vaccine (they may well be although that has not yet been proven) but I'm really not sure you could call it a cover up.

My guess is the age and sex aren't given out because with such a rare condition it might be personally identifiable information. Journalists door stepping bereaved families for comment is a risk

They did not 'find 25 more'
7 people have died total in the U.K.
22 have had this clotting disorder CVST
8 more have had low PLTs and clots but not in the brain

As the age and sex are not published the correct comparator at this point is still all people vaccinated with AZ ie 18 million

If you did know an age and sex breakdown of 7 cases it would be hard to deduce if that was a random variation on such low numbers eg if it's 2 men and 5 women will you find that significant but not if it's 3 and 4!

The worldwide data need to get added up. You can't take just the German data or just the U.K. data for such a rare condition.

I’ve read through that report twice and not seen any breakdown by age or gender. Perhaps you can point me in the right direction Sunshinegirl?

Sure Covoid, but if you want to add it up then you need to be able to access the data in the first place.

What @CovoidOfAllHumanity said.

Well someone does and I'm sure someone is but not you or me
The regulators do this

And if say 17 out of those 22 were all women under 50 then that would start to look like a trend I’m sure you agree?

The EU do break ADRS down by age, although again you can't drill down tot he minutiae to get the full picture it does show that the vast majority of all reactions are in the under 64 age group, despite fewer of them having had the vaccine.

All four vaccines are in this list under COVID alphabetically www.adrreports.eu/en/search_subst.html#

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

My guess is the age and sex aren't given out because with such a rare condition it might be personally identifiable information. Journalists door stepping bereaved families for comment is a risk

They did not 'find 25 more'
7 people have died total in the U.K.
22 have had this clotting disorder CVST
8 more have had low PLTs and clots but not in the brain

As the age and sex are not published the correct comparator at this point is still all people vaccinated with AZ ie 18 million

If you did know an age and sex breakdown of 7 cases it would be hard to deduce if that was a random variation on such low numbers eg if it's 2 men and 5 women will you find that significant but not if it's 3 and 4!

The worldwide data need to get added up. You can't take just the German data or just the U.K. data for such a rare condition.

7 deaths but we would probably look at the risk of developing the clots rather than just dying from one. yes, combining data from other countries would be helpful.

I’m not sure about the anonymity argument - there seem to be no qualms about reporting deaths from covid in younger people even though there are so few.

Honestly can’t see how saying x were male and y were female would be personally identifiable data. Germany has one of the strictest data protection laws in the world and yet they published this information!

The Dr published a case report presumably with consent

This is just for AZ dap.ema.europa.eu/analytics/saw.dll?PortalPages

[quote dividedwefall]This is just for AZ dap.ema.europa.eu/analytics/saw.dll?PortalPages[/quote]
Ignore. The link appears to take you to the stats for the whole site rather than the dedicated AZ page I copied the address from.

You will have to select the vaccine you want to look at from the list in my first post

@mudpiesfortea gosh i hope she is ok do you know what other symptoms she had o didnt realise calf pain was symptom of the rare blood clots
i also dont understand why we dont have the info about these deaths/hospitilisatioms when with covid we were constantly being told about individuals who had sadly died from covid it does seem odd like they dont want us to know

@anyoldtime

The pill increases the risk of CVST as well as other clotting problems like DVT.

In a review of research, the pooled odds of developing CVST in women aged 15–50 years taking OCPs was 7.59 times higher compared to women not taking the pill.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313700/

My suspicion is that they’re trying not to panic young women into not taking the vaccine. But I feel it’s really wrong to not share the data.

If it ever does emerge that it’s mostly young women, it will mean that them saying 30 in 18.1 million was deliberately misleading.