When I got my AstraZeneca vaccine (in 2021?) I remember it was common knowledge that fatal blood clots were a side effect, and from the evidence at the time I estimated that the chances of it killing me were 1 in 500,000. Have those odds changed with new information?
Wow. This side effect was pretty much common knowledge in Australia due to a notable early incident and the press coverage it received. It was even factored into the early vaccination process here with the AstraZeneca vaccine not being made available to everyone due to the risks, and that was somewhat of a political hot potato due to that particular vaccine being the one the government had put their money behind, signed deals, and if I recall correctly, even begun manufacturing doses before the final clinical trials were completed.
That’s just not true. Several countries stopped using the vaccine until more data was available. For example in Germany. And then when the vaccine was used again it was only used on a subset of the population (older people because this risk was minimal in those cases). It was discussed at the highest level and all throughout the country.
I'm my experience, in California/USA there was strong political denial of anything possibly negative about the vaccines.
Public health authorities were proclaiming that there were no possible side effects, even as other countries were restricting demographics and discontinuing use.
> Public health authorities were proclaiming that there were no possible side effects, even as other countries were restricting demographics and discontinuing use.
If we're talking about the Astrazeneca vaccine in particular in this subthread, with its clotting side effects-- it's worth noting that it never received a US EUA. It's not surprising that US agencies never restricted its use, having never authorized its use in the first place.
Nah - it was a real thing (and I like vaccines and science) with a risk running at about 2 issues in every 100,000 Asta-Z innoculations with symptoms cropping up within 42 days or so.
(With the bulk of issues being non fatal)
"hundreds of thousands" didn't die though, in all of Australia there was just one person that "probably maybe" died due to TTS (IIRC).
It was first spotted in the European adverse side affect database and written about early on.
That's definitely not true. I remember clearly health authorities and the media were completely open that 1 in N people will die from blood clots. From the beginning.
This is blatant historical revisionism. It was always "save and effective" and that's all people know. Furthermore if you refused to take it you were forced out of the company.
It was always "effective enough relative to the safety risk of rare blood clots". There was never any attempt to suppress knowledge of blood clots, it was international news and widely acknowledged by everyone as a risk associated with the AZ vaccine.
Maybe employers wanted to weed out employees who are subject to emotion and ideology that keeps them from correctly assessing the relative risk levels between two options.
