That's interesting that they said it was caused by overactive platelets. When I first heard about the AZ concerns a week or two ago, they specifically called out the clots as being abnormal because they had fewer platelets than they would expect.
As far as I understand, this is actually a common side effect of SVT, where so many platelets accrete in the thrombosis that there is a measurable dip in available platelets.
At what point will every major party - namely AstraZeneca - understand that what's being done in Europe, regarding these side effects, is the proper procedure, and refusing to acknowledge that will only cause more suspicion and fuel conspiracy theories?
If this work wasn't being done, and shoved under the rug like apparently was done in the UK (that had at least 5 cases after all) and many other places that had similar cases but probably threw them in the blood clot bucket, imagine when later it was discovered that those numbers were higher then what they should have been? That's politics, not science - that's precisely the other way around of the whole accusations of all of this event being a political event.
Hiding these cases is the political thing. Framing all of this as an attempt to discredit and compromise the vaccination effort is the political thing. Accusing these scientists of not knowing that every day of missed vaccination will increase the probability of other deaths is the political thing.
Don't people have the right to be informed? Shouldn't people be making informed decisions? Shouldn't people be told what to do in case of a adverse reaction? Shouldn't they be treated and taken care of? Aren't they entitled to proper compensation in case this happens and it's attributed to the vaccine and not to some natural random event?
None of these regulator bodies and scientists denied the vaccine was safe and effective, they simply spotted an anomaly and did what science should do. They found adverse reactions, have a strong indication of what causes it, and now will find a way to tackle it - saving more lives that would die a needless death, of people that were following their duty as citizens and choosing to take this vaccine for their safety and the safety of others, because they believe in the institutions that take care of vaccine and medicines safety.
It is not how it happened at all. EMA looked at this and said – it is possible that these cases are related to vaccine but it doesn't change that the benefit overweighs risk and there was no reason to stop the vaccine. Informing patients about new rare side-effects of new drugs is done all the time. Normally there is no reason to suspend the drug globally every time a rare side effect happens.
This matter is of public interest, it just isn't reported often or at all, yet all eyes are on these vaccines, specially on a controversial one such as AZ vaccine.
I can only see the recurring mistake mentioning generic "blood clots", and that "the vaccine doesn't cause blood clots", when the only ones talking about blood clots were media outlets, while the anomaly was always reported as low pallets causing bleeding and a specific type of clots.
This is what happens when you try to control the narrative of events, you end up creating noise - because regulators from Norway, Dernmark, and many other countries will continue to report this because it's still happening, while media outlets, and the WHO have the narrative that everything is fine and this wasn't even a subject.
Literally two narratives came from this event:
- "the vaccine is safe and effective and doesn't cause blood clots", which is true and always was true and no one ever questioned it.
- "there's an ongoing investigation because the vaccine is causing a specific adverse reaction in very few people, most prevalent in women under 50 years old", which is also true and doesn't contradict the first narrative.
Now how the hell are common people supposed to know what to believe, when both narratives are true but seem to contradict each other? Why did they spin off the first narrative, when it only adds noise and confusion.
You are right, that's how it was communicated by irresponsible journalists and politicians. They managed to influence the public opinion against the vaccine. Now many countries will have to deal with growing anti-vaxx sentiments and delaying the successful resolution of covid crisis.
