AZ clotting issue affects mainly women

[womanity]

According to Germany.

The German medicines regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, has found 31 cases of cerebral sinus vein thrombosis (CSVT) among people who received AstraZeneca in Germany.
Almost all the cases are reportedly in younger and middle-aged women.

Covid: Germany limits use of AstraZeneca Covid jab for under-60s www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56580728

It would be interesting to know if, for example, Canada was able to give us similarly clear statistical evidence by sex.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975786/COVID-19_AstraZeneca_Vaccine_Analysis_Print.pdf

I had the AZ vaccine two weeks ago tomorrow. I am 55.

I've been having pains in my heart region for almost two weeks now ( a new phenomenon for me) - and had to go to the hospital for an ECG today; also post menopausal bleeding a couple of days ago.
I had uterine polyps removed in November last year -which had been causing bleeding and spotting. No issues since, until the other day.

The proportion of people who self ID as different from their biological sex must be miniscule compared to the millions of people who have had the vaccination.
You’d have no way of knowing if it was minuscule or not. That’s the point.

justhadathought, hope you’re okay soon. 💐

Could it be because the UK is only now embarking on large numbers in the under 50s age group? Though I'm assuming many of the healthcare workers vaccinated already were women under 50.

It could well be. Even in Europe it's almost one-in-a-million so even if your young healthcare workers have already been vaccinated with AZ, there just haven't been enough of them for cases to appear.

Could it be because the UK is only now embarking on large numbers in the under 50s age group? Though I'm assuming many of the healthcare workers vaccinated already were women under 50.

Imagine if we had let everyone identify their own age, instead of forcing them to go with the one they were assigned at birth. All that data lost!

just to get some very rough numbers.

fullfact.org/health/how-many-nhs-employees-are-there/

There are roughly 1.5 million people employed by the NHS across the UK

By country, the NHS directly employs around

<strong>1.2 million staff in England</strong>
<strong>162,000 staff in Scotland</strong>
<strong>89,000 staff in Wales</strong>
<strong>64,000 staff in Northern Ireland</strong>

But these numbers do not include everyone working in the health sector. They leave out some people, such as temporary staff, GPs, dentists, optometrists, and other staff in the independent sector or private hospitals

pharmafield.co.uk/healthcare/the-role-of-women-in-the-nhs-in-england/

Of the 1,216,719 staff members working in the NHS in September 2018, 935,772 were women (77% of the workforce)

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/national-information/The-size-and-structure-of-the-adult-social-care-sector-and-workforce-in-England.aspx

The number of people working in adult social care was estimated at 1.52 million
The number of adult social care jobs in England as at 2019/20 was estimated at 1.65 million – this has increased by around 1% (17,000 jobs) between 2018/19 and 2019/20

www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/time-think-differently/trends-workforce-overview

I'm in my 40s and had AZ late week.

I suppose as well as the pill there is also HRT as something that may have an impact ?
I am on HRT. I’ve had my first dose of AZ but not my second.

@womanity

The proportion of people who self ID as different from their biological sex must be miniscule compared to the millions of people who have had the vaccination. You’d have no way of knowing if it was minuscule or not. That’s the point.

justhadathought, hope you’re okay soon. 💐

Seriously? You think the statistics on this are being skewed by self ID?

I'm actually not sure what your point is. The clotting has been absolutely miniscule in proportion to the number of vaccinations given to the point it's more likely to be a coincidence.

@zeev thanks for the reply, but was this bit aimed at me? The clotting phenomenon is slightly strange; it resembles DIC where thrombocytes crash very low but blood still clots. It does seem to be a real phenomenon, it is now researched by real scientists, who publish in real scientific journals. It is not just us silly Euros playing with politics. hmm
Nothing I said warrants that snark. I looked at real scientific journal results and asked a sensible question.

Totally agree that while sex based data is important the only possible way it is significant enough to influence these results is if 80% of the clotting cases were actually trans.

The clotting phenomenon is slightly strange; it resembles DIC where thrombocytes crash very low but blood still clots

This is not exactly how it works

[quote timeisnotaline]**@zeev* thanks for the reply, but was this bit aimed at me? The clotting phenomenon is slightly strange; it resembles DIC where thrombocytes crash very low but blood still clots. It does seem to be a real phenomenon, it is now researched by real scientists, who publish in real scientific journals. It is not just us silly Euros playing with politics. hmm*
Nothing I said warrants that snark. I looked at real scientific journal results and asked a sensible question.[/quote]
Were you the one who said "I don't think I would believe a single word about Astra Zenica if it emanated from an EU country"?

If not, it was not aimed at you.

I wasn’t, thanks for clarifying. You included that comment in a reply to me, so it was understandably hard to tell.

@timeisnotaline

Totally agree that while sex based data is important the only possible way it is significant enough to influence these results is if 80% of the clotting cases were actually trans.

I’m not talking about it skewing the stats. My point is simply that sex matters. In the same way that age does, BMI does, other conditions do.

If it turns out that there is a risk, and that it affects women (or men) only, then that information is useful for women (or men) being vaccinated, so you need to know who is who.

@zeev you said that most of the people getting AZ in the UK are over 55. Where did you get that data from please?

Millions of people under 55 have been vaccinated- how do you know they got Pfizer?

@Mygardenisnotperfect

Interestingly I’ve seen 2 cases of CSVT in the past year, one in a woman in her late 20s and one in a woman in her early 50s. Both happened not long after the first wave of COVID and I’m now wondering if they may have been linked to COVID infection. It is such a rare issue that it was a bit unsettling to see two of them within the space of a couple of months. Fortunately haven’t seen any since vaccinations started personally but it’s a rare illness.

Someone was talking about this on Women’s Hour this week - an expert- who pointed out that we are much more likely to have blood clot issues, eg stroke, thrombosis in legs / lungs if we have Covid than if we don’t/ so the best protection is to have the vaccination. The possibility of the vaccine causing these issues is so rare, possibly 1 per million, if that. He talked about similar clot risks with taking the pill. When this was first muted, may women stopped taking it. The incidences of clotting episodes as a result of pregnancy increased. Again women were more at risk by getting pregnant than by being on the pill.

@Mn753

Some are saying could be linked to contraceptive pill. Because it's fine to give something to women and girls that causes blood clots. Just not real people (men).

There is a far higher risk of clots through pregnancy than through taking the contraceptive pill.

In 2016, 57,000 people had their first stroke in the UK. That’s 156 people per day. Figures are similar for current years. By the law of averages, some of those people will have had their Covid vaccination on or just before the days when they have their stroke. That doesn’t mean the vaccine caused it. If they get knocked over by a bus on the way home from having their vaccine, would people say it causes RTAs? It might sound like I’m being flippant, but I’m trying to show that things aren’t happening just because of vaccines.

an expert- who pointed out that we are much more likely to have blood clot issues, eg stroke, thrombosis in legs / lungs if we have Covid than if we don’t/ so the best protection is to have the vaccination.

I'll be interested to see if the lockdown-associated level of sedentariness increases the incidence of clotting disorders/ischaemic leg/PAD etc.

If they get knocked over by a bus on the way home from having their vaccine, would people say it causes RTAs?

Off topic but apparently catching toxoplasmosis increases your risk of being involved in car accidents.

I strongly recommend this article, written by one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration, which was set up to aid the systematic use of high quality evidence in medicine:

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clot-issue-wont-go-away/618451/

She is worried, and she also sets out the complicated dilemmas governments and health professionals face with this. There is still much we don’t know and it’s really really important this is looked at.

The AZ vax is very cheap compared to the others - it’s been provided at cost price. That means our gov has a reason to keep using it (especially as we have pre-ordered so much of it) and yes, probably other pharmaceutical companies have a reason to slam it. None of the information we have at present exists in a nice pure vacuum where these issues are removed.

But, the available evidence as it currently appears is that Az does seem to be correlated with a very specific form of deadly blood clotting which is usually extremely rare. It is wrong to just compare those incidents and deaths to general “blood clotting”. This is a very specific type of clotting.

It’s also wrong to compare the risk of experiencing one of these blood clots to the overall risk from covid. The cases (and deaths) in Europe do seem to be strongly concentrated in women under 55. So the relevant comparator is the risk from covid to women under 55 (and the case rate after the vaccine likewise needs to be compared to the number of women under 55 who have had the AZ, not the total jabs to date).

I also think that with the death rate from these clots being so high in the European cases, we cannot dismiss this as “hyper vigilance” - as something just picked up because people are alert to post vax side effects. This isn’t just a sore arm.

That said, there is still a lot we don’t know. I am usually very pro vax. I remain very pro covid vax, but I want this looked at urgently.
I don’t want this to be yet another thing women are thrown under a bus for. If the gov (and taxpayer) needs to shell out to pay for alternative vaccines for women under 55, then that is what they must do.

It is not simply 'shelling out for new vaccines', it about supply. Nor is it just about those vaccinated - vaccine always have an element of 'for the universal good'. Women don't get vaccinated against Rubella for their own benefit. So when comparing outcomes you cannot simply look at the target group, you also need to look at the impact of not vaccinating (due to lack of availability) on the population as a whole. If these women are receivibg the vaccine due to occulational roles then they will both be at higher risk of covid and also at higher risk of spreading it to more vulnnerable individuals.
Also if this clotting is only observed in one country not others then that suggests a high likelihood of confounding.

Yes @Tibtom I agree re much still not known re the cases recently observed.

I understand the point about the greater good, but that’s also what I was alluding to about not wanting this to be another thing women are thrown under a bus for. So far, we haven’t had a single other demographic group with the covid vax where there is a suggestion that they should take the risk for the sake of others.
Funny how that only becomes an issue when it’s women who face the potentially increased relative risk.
That’s not an argument for women NOT being vaxd. It’s a potential argument (after the evidence has been properly gathered and examined) for finding an alternative vax for women. And yes, you’re absolutely right it’s not just a question of shelling out. Supply is a massive issue, so if it came to needing an alt vax for women under 55, then there would be some delay built into that - and the risks to those women and society at large which comes with it. But perhaps what’s more likely is that more research on this will lead to an identification of more specific risk factors for women and the AZ, which might mean only a small portion of women would need an alternative

17 more cases of CVST reported in the UK now:
on.ft.com/2PQbzNQ

The Ft report on the 17 doesn’t give a sex break down. I think I’d seen elsewhere that the UK cases were largely men so far. Has anyone seen a break down for the latest set?

So far, we haven’t had a single other demographic group with the covid vax where there is a suggestion that they should take the risk for the sake of others.

Wait till they license it for children, who as a group have probably paid the biggest cost to date for the sake of others due to covid. They already receive the flu vaccination for the sake of older people.

I do get what you mean. But how does this vaccine compare to the full risk profile of others? It is still a very very rare adverse event and it will take a while to get the full picture for any vaccine when you are looking at incidents at this level of frequency. Including new ones.