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EU regulatory body convinced that AstraZeneca vaccines benefits outweigh possible risks
EU regulatory agency responded after more than a dozen EU countries suspended the Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine amid health concerns. The EU regulatory body is “fully convinced” that the vaccine's benefits outweigh possible risks. Global health experts have been under growing pressure to answer questions over the safety of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot. “There is ”no indication'' that AstraZeneca vaccines are the cause of blood clots reported in some shot recipients, the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) chief said on Tuesday.
The regulatory agency responded after more than a dozen EU countries suspended the Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine amid health concerns.
The agency is “still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19 with its associated risk of hospitalization and death outweigh the risk of these side effects,” Executive Director Emer Cooke added.
Cooke said that an EMA evaluation of individual incidents is ongoing. It is expected to complete a full review on Thursday.
There are fears about the safety of the vaccine in some countries after several cases of blood clots or brain hemorrhages in people after receiving the inoculation. A small number of deaths have been reported.
The WHO, AstraZeneca, and the EMA have all insisted the AstraZeneca shot is safe, and that there is no link between the vaccine and reported blood clots. They say clots are not occurring in greater numbers or frequency than normally in the general population.
The vaccine was developed by British Swedish firm AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in England. More than 11 million doses have been administered in the UK, without any major problems reported.
Emer stressed that “trust in the safety and efficacy of these vaccines is paramount for us.” She added it was the job of the agency to ensure the vaccines were safe.
On speculation that incidents of blood clots were related to a specific vaccine batch, Cooke said it was “unlikely” but the EMA was not ruling it out.
“We are looking at adverse events associated with all vaccines,” Cooke said when asked if it was probing the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines as well, following reports of clotting with those jabs in the United States.
A World Health Organization (WHO) committee of experts is also reviewing isolated cases of blood clots and low platelet counts in vaccinated individuals.
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Read all commentsAlthough there have been numerous cases of blood clots in healthy patients after receiving the inoculation resulting in death — I agree vaccines in general are a positive thing for adults to achieve herd immunity.
Mar 17th, 2021 - 07:13 pm 0(I’m personally scheduled to receive the first Sinovac vaccine injection on the 27th.)
However, Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told Newsweek that COVID-19 lockdowns are “the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years.”
The medical professor warned that lockdowns are disproportionately impacting the poor and making wealth inequality worse. He also explained how the areas that imposed the most draconian lockdowns didn’t see the most success in controlling the virus.
“I stand behind my comment that the lockdowns are the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years. We will be counting the catastrophic health and psychological harms, imposed on nearly every poor person on the face of the earth, for a generation,” said Bhattacharya.
“At the same time, they have not served to control the epidemic in the places where they have been most vigorously imposed and have — at best – protected the “non-essential” class from COVID, while exposing the essential working class to the disease. The lockdowns are trickle down epidemiology,” he added.
The professor suggested that policies should have been designed to protect the vulnerable and not used to put entire populations under de facto house arrest.
“People who are older have a much higher risk from dying from COVID than people who are younger…and that’s a really important fact because we know who his most vulnerable, it’s people that are older. So the first plank of the Great Barrington Declaration: let’s protect the vulnerable,” Bhattacharya said.
“Lockdowns themselves impose great harm on people. Lockdowns are not a natural normal way to live.”
In fact Sweden without lockdown — has relatively the same mortality rate as the UK!
¡Saludos de Chile!
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