FDA adds warning about rare heart inflammation to Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines

[Mitz]

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday added a warning to the literature that accompanies Pfizer Inc/BioNTech and Moderna COVID vaccine shots to indicate the rare risk of heart inflammation after its use.

For each vaccine, the fact sheets for healthcare providers have been revised to include a warning that reports of adverse events suggest increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly after the second dose and with onset of symptoms within a few days after vaccination, the FDA said.

SUBSTANDARD GENERIC DRUGS ARE FLOODING THE US MARKET AND PUTTING ALL AMERICANS AT RISK

As of June 11, more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis have been reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), out of about 300 million mRNA vaccine doses administered.

The cases appear to be notably higher in males and in the week after the second vaccine dose. The CDC identified 309 hospitalizations from heart inflammation in persons under the age of 30, of which 295 have been discharged.

Health regulators in several countries have been investigating cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, more frequently found in young men, after a shot of Pfizer or Moderna, vaccines that are based on the mRNA technology.


The latest update from FDA follows an extensive review of information and the discussion by CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting on Wednesday.

Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately respond to requests for comment after business hours.



https://www.foxbusiness.com/healthc...inflammation-to-pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccines

 

[rew]

I guess there is always gonna be a small risk with every vaccine. There's never gonna be a one size fits all.

 

[Mitz]

I guess there is always gonna be a small risk with every vaccine. There's never gonna be a one size fits all.

Absolutely. ALL vaccines carry risks. People just need to be aware of what they are in case they experience them and don't just brush it off as something unrelated.

Can never be over-informed, imho.

 

[andipandi]

I guess there is always gonna be a small risk with every vaccine.

Indeed, from yesterdays protest

https://mysevenoakscommunity.com/taken-too-soon-the-tragic-loss-of-dr-stephen-wright/

 

[knome]

Indeed, from yesterdays protest

View attachment 249431



https://mysevenoakscommunity.com/taken-too-soon-the-tragic-loss-of-dr-stephen-wright/

Hmmmm.....

Has that sevonoakscommunity link been censored? There is no mention of AstraZeneca or anti-vaccing.

Is that photo with the placard real? Why would you do that after recently burying your husband?

Poor man, very sad.

 

[andipandi]

@knome

21/06/2021

It took months for Charlotte Wright to accept what killed her husband. His passing was sudden and unexpected, the causes desperately unclear at the time. After appearing to have suffered a stroke, Dr Stephen Wright was rushed to hospital in the early hours of 26 January. Later that day, at 6.33pm, time of death was called.

Only now, after medical confirmation, does Charlotte acknowledge that her 32-year-old husband, and father to two young boys, died as a result of vaccine-induced clotting in the brain. “Because we were both pro-vaccine,” Charlotte says, “I was in denial about everything and scared to suggest that had been the cause.”

A clinical psychologist who regularly worked in A&E, Stephen is just one of 66 people in the UK to die from the rare syndrome, having received a first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab on 16 January. With more than 40 million shots of the vaccine administered up to 2 June, the statistics speak loudly for themselves. Stephen’s death was heartbreakingly rare – a moment of cruel chance that carried catastrophic consequences for his loved ones.

His passing is made all the more unbearable by the civic duty he was performing. In any given week, many more will die from the lesser acts that define our everyday lives – crossing the road, driving to work, walking down the stairs. The exceptional circumstances surrounding Stephen’s death are far harder to comprehend. Sixty-five other families are in the same crushing bind.

The realisation of what had happened eventually sunk in for Charlotte during a call with a leading haematologist on 19 April. The expert said that “never before in natural history” had a case like Stephen’s been recorded, and speculated that he was the first person in the UK – “possibly the world” – to die from a Covid vaccine. “That was the moment I accepted it,” says Charlotte.

But it didn’t make it any easier to process. She is still haunted by that winter night back in January when her world collapsed in on itself: a nightmarish blur of flashing ambulance lights, her husband confused and struggling to walk in a straight line, and one final embrace. “We desperately said goodbye to each other twice, and told each other we loved one another,” Charlotte says. “I keep looking back now and thinking why didn’t I say more, but I didn’t want to worry him.”

By the time Charlotte was called in the next day at 2pm, Stephen had all but gone. He had suffered seizures and multiple bleeds on the brain throughout the night, while his platelet count was estimated to be at around 10,000. A normal count stands at 150,000, and anything under 100,000 is deemed dangerous to operate on. After Stephen failed two brain stem tests, the decision was made to switch off his life support.

“When I had the call from the hospital, he’d already passed really,” says Charlotte. “They were calling me in to tell me he’d died. It was ridiculously quick, which we didn’t get out of our minds.”

But it is the events that followed Stephen’s death which have driven the young mother to speak out publicly. She is not here to question the vaccines, which she continues to stand by. “I don’t disagree with the rollout,” she says. “I know why they had to do it and that they had to do it.

Instead, she is hoping to spark a proper conversation around the clinical, emotional and financial support that is needed for the small number of families and people affected by adverse reactions to the Covid vaccines, both past and future.

In the days after Stephen’s death, Charlotte and her family were left to scramble around in the dark for answers. At that point, when Covid was still ripping through hospitals and communities in Britain, during a severe second wave, the blood clotting issue linked to the vaccines had yet to surface. Knowledge on the matter was absent. Those seen to be questioning the jabs were dismissed.

It was not until 8 February that Stephen’s passing was reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Before then, there was no way that the hospital experts who treated her husband could explain his death, Charlotte says. But as the link between blood clotting and the vaccines slowly became clearer, the family remained neglected, she says.

“We were looking for support and what we could do,” Charlotte says. “We know there are loads of other families out there whose loved ones have suffered adverse reactions. There’s an absence of support and information for these people.”

The greatest source of frustration and anger for the Wrights has arisen from their attempts to navigate the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme. Under legislation passed in 1979, people who suffer harm from vaccines can claim damages from the government of up to £120,000. But to do so, victims must prove that they are at least 60 per cent disabled as a result of vaccination – a threshold that is seen as too high.

The VDPS was originally introduced as part of efforts to maintain faith in the DTP vaccine, administered to infants, following an unjustified safety scare. Dr Claas Kirchhelle, a historian of medicine at University College Dublin, says it was the government’s way of proving to the public that “we will care for you if anything were to go wrong”. Such payments also helped to keep any damaging or disruptive compensation claims out of the courts.

Although the Covid jabs were added to the VDPS late last year, the outdated bureaucracy of the scheme means it is unsuitable for a pandemic vaccination programme which has seen millions of people inoculated.

“When it came round to filling out the form, it was so atrocious,” says Charlotte. “There wasn’t even a relevant box for Stephen.” Given there is no acknowledgement of death on the form, which is veered towards children who may be suffering a vaccine-related disability, the Wrights were forced to create a box to say that Stephen had died. “That was more hurtful to me because if he was disabled he’d still be here.”

To make matters worse, the family has yet to receive confirmation as to whether their application has been received or processed. “We’ve heard absolutely nothing,” Charlotte says. “We have no idea if they’ve got it.”

There is also the issue that £120,000 – the equivalent of £470,000 today – won’t come close to covering the loss of earnings following Stephen’s death. Many of the other 65 families will be confronted with similar financial concerns.

As for those many more people who have suffered long-term damage following an adverse reaction, they now face the challenge of meeting the high disability threshold set out by the VDPS. Just 15 per cent of claims are successful.

For Charlotte, the buck stops with the government. “They have the means to reform this scheme,” she says. “Just leaving it as it is, that’s hard to take.”

More emotional support is needed too, she says. “Even if it is some sort of hotline for these families,” Charlotte adds. “And acknowledgement that our applications have been received.”

She has started a petition calling on the House of Commons to discuss the issue. It has more than 3,000 signatures but needs 10,000 to receive a parliamentary response. The Wrights are also one of 20 affected families that have signed a letter, organised by Sarah Moore, a lawyer at Hausfeld law firm, which was sent to various MPs “seeking their assistance in pushing for legislative change” to ensure affected individuals are provided with “meaningful support”.

Charlotte’s campaigning has meanwhile caught the attention of other families in similar situations. She has offered support to a number of people, “pointing them in the right direction,” due to the lack of information out there. “I think it’s the government’s responsibility to do that,” she says. “I’m happy to help but it should already be there.”

But her attempts to raise awareness within the public domain have also been targeted by social media trolls who have accused her of challenging the vaccines. “It’s not good enough to blame the people that have lost loved ones and call them anti-vax and let them deal with all the negativity because they’re not being supported,” she says. As with many things, the nuances of this sensitive topic have been lost in the black hole of social media.

Despite everything, Charlotte takes comfort in the support network that she has around her, in the form of her two children, parents, older brother, in-laws and close friends. “I’m privileged,” she says. “If I was older and didn’t use social media or have a phone or computer, and I lost my husband, then I wouldn’t know where to go.”

Charlotte has taken on this burden out of a desire to ensure that some good can come from her husband’s death, and this is what’s driving her forward. It is a sadly unavoidable fact that as more people are vaccinated in the months and years to come, a minority will suffer rare, even possibly fatal, reactions. It is imperative that the government looks after these individuals and does what it can to “maintain the public’s confidence in the vaccines”, says Charlotte. The fight against Covid depends on it.

https://www.independent.co.uk/indep...ine-astrazeneca-uk-side-effects-b1864258.html

 

[andipandi]

The government has been urged to introduce a bespoke Covid compensation scheme that better supports the “forgotten” people who suffer severe side effects following vaccination, as experts warned that a failure to do so could actively fuel disinformation surrounding the jabs. Speaking to The Independent, a number of affected families said they continue to stand by the vaccines and urged the public to continue taking them. But more needs to be done, they argue, to provide greater financial, emotional and clinical help to individuals who, in very rare instances, experience an adverse reaction to the jabs.


The families all said there was a “frustrating” absence of information, making it hard to know what support they are entitled to, whether the vaccine was responsible for their loved ones’ condition, and how they might claim compensation if so. They also claimed that there has been a reluctance among authorities to engage with their cases, out of fear of being seen to question the vaccine programme.

One woman said clinicians were initially dismissive of her husband’s deteriorating condition in the days after he received a first dose. Another woman who lost her partner to rare clotting in the brain said the current damages scheme seems “as though it was intentionally made to prevent claims”. “They are in a state of bewilderment,” said Sarah Moore, a lawyer assisting the families. “They have loved ones who are in intensive care or suffering severe health effects. In one case the person affected died. The families feel that there is nowhere to go, no explanation, no help.”


As with any medicine that is commonly used by millions of people, rare side effects are to be expected from vaccination. These can range from the extremely rare blood clots detected in some recipients of the AstraZeneca jab – a link that has been acknowledged by Britain’s medicines regulator – to other conditions, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare immune disorder, where the relationship between cause and effect is unproven.

Under legislation passed in 1979, people who suffer harm from vaccines can claim damages from the government of up to £120,000. But to do so, victims must prove that they are at least 60 per cent disabled as a result of vaccination – a threshold that is seen by some to be too high. “You need to show severe disablement,” said Duncan Fairgrieve, a professor of comparative law. “And the issue of causation is not easy to prove either. These constitute relatively high obstacles to recovery of compensation, which add to already complicated circumstances in terms of understanding what’s going on.”

Medicines experts, lawyers and families have instead called for a complete overhaul of the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS), saying it is “dated” and “irrelevant to what’s going on” in the context of coronavirus. Ms Moore said the government should implement a bespoke Covid vaccine scheme that accommodates the small but growing number of recipients who have experienced debilitating reactions to the jabs.

“In order to receive financial compensation, cause and effect would have to be established, and in cases of GBS that is difficult. However, any scheme could also provide support in a wider sense of the word,” she said, adding that there is a need for “clinical support and a hub of places where people can go to have sensible conversations with experts about what’s gone on”. Amid the absence of information on “what you can do, what questions to ask”, Ms Moore added, this “gap” is going to be filled with social media and other unreliable sources, “potentially leading to disinformation and vaccine hesitancy”.

In one case handled by Ms Moore, a 32-year-old doctor, Stephen Wright, died as a result of rare clotting in the brain eight days after he had received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Dr Wright leaves behind a wife, Charlotte, and two children. In accordance with the VDPS, his family are entitled up to £120,000 in damages. “Filling out such an archaic, solely paper-based form in a world of technology seemed as though it was intentionally made to prevent claims, rather than support the victims who needed that support in the midst of tremendous grief,” Ms Wright said, in comments provided through her lawyer.

“I had to create a ‘death application’ weeks after losing my husband. There is no way to track it. I have no idea if it’s even been received. The psychological trauma, on top of the grief my sons and I are experiencing, is unimaginable.” With 49 people in the UK now having died from the blood clotting disorder, experts have demanded the government addresses this legislative “blind spot”.

Dr Claas Kirchhelle, a historian of medicine at University College Dublin, alongside other experts, first wrote to Downing Street in November, before the vaccine rollout began. They called for the scheme to be modernised, but “nothing was done”. “Transparent and effective compensation is an important part of vaccine acceptance,” said Dr Kirchhelle. “The benefits of vaccination far outweigh any risks, but you still have a duty to take care of the people who suffer side effects, and make it easy for them to seek help.

“If we’re going to move into a continuing rollout basis, which seems very likely, we need to address the issue of compensation now rather than later.” Other people represented by Ms Moore include those suffering from GBS, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the nerves and is typically active for up to four weeks, but can last for longer. These cases are less clear-cut, with no definitive relationship established between the condition and vaccination.

There appears to be an occurrence of GBS in approximately one per million Covid vaccinations, according to the charity Gain, which supports sufferers of the condition. An estimated one to two people per 100,000 are normally affected by the condition annually in the UK.

Data from Britain’s medicines regulator, meanwhile, show that there have been 184 cases of GBS reported among the more than 22 million people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. On Friday, the European Medicines Agency said it was investigating possible connections between GBS and the jab. It said it was also looking into reports of heart inflammation linked to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Paul Skinner, from Liverpool, said his 75-year-old mother was hospitalised with GBS a week after receiving her vaccine in February. Previously “fit, healthy and active”, Barbara was paralysed across much of her body and is now facing a year-long recovery.

“My mum understands everyone needs to be vaccinated, she took that on board herself. The risks are higher from Covid, she knew that,” Mr Skinner said. “Scientifically and medically, we don’t know if there is link between her reaction and the vaccine. We know there’s a risk with any vaccine and medication but I’m desperate for answers and help.

“People may well say that these cases are almost one in a million, but that doesn’t help us. We’re just forgotten. It’s not fair to say that these things happen and that’s that. We’ve been left in the dark without any support.”

Mr Skinner is one of the 43 people who have submitted applications to the VDPS, but he has yet to receive a response from officials. “The scheme just seems so dated and irrelevant to what’s going on at the moment.”

Another family, from Stoke-on-Trent, said their “fit and healthy” father, Tony, 58, was diagnosed with GBS 12 days after being vaccinated. He is currently paralysed and receiving treatment in intensive care. His daughter, Natasha, said doctors initially dismissed the family’s concerns over his condition as he slowly deteriorated in early March.

“It was a battle to get him into hospital, never mind the battle we’re facing to sort financing and support,” Natasha said. Tony’s wife, Nicola, said even if they were able to prove that vaccination had triggered GBS, the payments available through the VDPS “won’t come anyway near what his earnings would have been” if he’s left with a long-term disability and cannot work.

“Genetic experts have asked for Tony’s DNA sample to be used in research to better understand why he reacted this way to the vaccine,” Nicola said. “Authorities need to be clearer about what the full scope of reactions can be. We know all medicine has risks, but we were oblivious.”

Regardless of whether a link is ever established between the jab and GBS, there needs to be greater willingness among authorities to actively engage with potential sufferers of side effects, said Dr Kirchhelle.

Otherwise, he explained, this could fuel dangerous speculation. In some cases, aggrieved families may feel inclined to bypass the VDPS scheme and pursue lawsuits that are “damaging for vaccine uptake, emotionally stressful for everyone involved, and potentially far more costly for the government”.

“Creating an updated compensation scheme would not only help defuse vaccine hesitancy but also signal government confidence in the products that have been licensed,” he added.

“Avoiding the issue because you are afraid of undermining vaccine confidence means that you risk really letting down those individuals who have taken a vaccine for the good of society and appear to have suffered adverse effects.”

The Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said it continuously monitors suspected adverse reactions reported with the Covid jabs, to ascertain “whether the vaccine may have caused the event” or whether it is “likely to be purely coincidental and due to underlying illness”.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the Covid-19 vaccines are safe, effective and provide the best route out of the pandemic, having already saved an estimated 10,000 lives. “All vaccines being used in the UK have undergone robust clinical trials and have met the MHRA’s strict standards of safety, effectiveness and quality,” a spokesperson added.

“The vaccine damage payments scheme provides a financial safety net to help ease the burden on individuals who have, in extremely rare circumstances, experienced harm due to receiving a government-recommended vaccine for a listed disease.”

A group of experts, including Professor Duncan Fairgrieve and Dr Claas Kirchhelle, have written an open letter on the topic of vaccine compensation. Read it here.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-vaccine-side-effects-blood-clots-b1843067.html

 

[Mitz]

The government has been urged to introduce a bespoke Covid compensation scheme that better supports the “forgotten” people who suffer severe side effects following vaccination, as experts warned that a failure to do so could actively fuel disinformation surrounding the jabs. Speaking to The Independent, a number of affected families said they continue to stand by the vaccines and urged the public to continue taking them. But more needs to be done, they argue, to provide greater financial, emotional and clinical help to individuals who, in very rare instances, experience an adverse reaction to the jabs.


The families all said there was a “frustrating” absence of information, making it hard to know what support they are entitled to, whether the vaccine was responsible for their loved ones’ condition, and how they might claim compensation if so. They also claimed that there has been a reluctance among authorities to engage with their cases, out of fear of being seen to question the vaccine programme.

One woman said clinicians were initially dismissive of her husband’s deteriorating condition in the days after he received a first dose. Another woman who lost her partner to rare clotting in the brain said the current damages scheme seems “as though it was intentionally made to prevent claims”. “They are in a state of bewilderment,” said Sarah Moore, a lawyer assisting the families. “They have loved ones who are in intensive care or suffering severe health effects. In one case the person affected died. The families feel that there is nowhere to go, no explanation, no help.”


As with any medicine that is commonly used by millions of people, rare side effects are to be expected from vaccination. These can range from the extremely rare blood clots detected in some recipients of the AstraZeneca jab – a link that has been acknowledged by Britain’s medicines regulator – to other conditions, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare immune disorder, where the relationship between cause and effect is unproven.

Under legislation passed in 1979, people who suffer harm from vaccines can claim damages from the government of up to £120,000. But to do so, victims must prove that they are at least 60 per cent disabled as a result of vaccination – a threshold that is seen by some to be too high. “You need to show severe disablement,” said Duncan Fairgrieve, a professor of comparative law. “And the issue of causation is not easy to prove either. These constitute relatively high obstacles to recovery of compensation, which add to already complicated circumstances in terms of understanding what’s going on.”

Medicines experts, lawyers and families have instead called for a complete overhaul of the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS), saying it is “dated” and “irrelevant to what’s going on” in the context of coronavirus. Ms Moore said the government should implement a bespoke Covid vaccine scheme that accommodates the small but growing number of recipients who have experienced debilitating reactions to the jabs.

“In order to receive financial compensation, cause and effect would have to be established, and in cases of GBS that is difficult. However, any scheme could also provide support in a wider sense of the word,” she said, adding that there is a need for “clinical support and a hub of places where people can go to have sensible conversations with experts about what’s gone on”. Amid the absence of information on “what you can do, what questions to ask”, Ms Moore added, this “gap” is going to be filled with social media and other unreliable sources, “potentially leading to disinformation and vaccine hesitancy”.

In one case handled by Ms Moore, a 32-year-old doctor, Stephen Wright, died as a result of rare clotting in the brain eight days after he had received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Dr Wright leaves behind a wife, Charlotte, and two children. In accordance with the VDPS, his family are entitled up to £120,000 in damages. “Filling out such an archaic, solely paper-based form in a world of technology seemed as though it was intentionally made to prevent claims, rather than support the victims who needed that support in the midst of tremendous grief,” Ms Wright said, in comments provided through her lawyer.

“I had to create a ‘death application’ weeks after losing my husband. There is no way to track it. I have no idea if it’s even been received. The psychological trauma, on top of the grief my sons and I are experiencing, is unimaginable.” With 49 people in the UK now having died from the blood clotting disorder, experts have demanded the government addresses this legislative “blind spot”.

Dr Claas Kirchhelle, a historian of medicine at University College Dublin, alongside other experts, first wrote to Downing Street in November, before the vaccine rollout began. They called for the scheme to be modernised, but “nothing was done”. “Transparent and effective compensation is an important part of vaccine acceptance,” said Dr Kirchhelle. “The benefits of vaccination far outweigh any risks, but you still have a duty to take care of the people who suffer side effects, and make it easy for them to seek help.

“If we’re going to move into a continuing rollout basis, which seems very likely, we need to address the issue of compensation now rather than later.” Other people represented by Ms Moore include those suffering from GBS, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the nerves and is typically active for up to four weeks, but can last for longer. These cases are less clear-cut, with no definitive relationship established between the condition and vaccination.

There appears to be an occurrence of GBS in approximately one per million Covid vaccinations, according to the charity Gain, which supports sufferers of the condition. An estimated one to two people per 100,000 are normally affected by the condition annually in the UK.

Data from Britain’s medicines regulator, meanwhile, show that there have been 184 cases of GBS reported among the more than 22 million people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. On Friday, the European Medicines Agency said it was investigating possible connections between GBS and the jab. It said it was also looking into reports of heart inflammation linked to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Paul Skinner, from Liverpool, said his 75-year-old mother was hospitalised with GBS a week after receiving her vaccine in February. Previously “fit, healthy and active”, Barbara was paralysed across much of her body and is now facing a year-long recovery.

“My mum understands everyone needs to be vaccinated, she took that on board herself. The risks are higher from Covid, she knew that,” Mr Skinner said. “Scientifically and medically, we don’t know if there is link between her reaction and the vaccine. We know there’s a risk with any vaccine and medication but I’m desperate for answers and help.

“People may well say that these cases are almost one in a million, but that doesn’t help us. We’re just forgotten. It’s not fair to say that these things happen and that’s that. We’ve been left in the dark without any support.”

Mr Skinner is one of the 43 people who have submitted applications to the VDPS, but he has yet to receive a response from officials. “The scheme just seems so dated and irrelevant to what’s going on at the moment.”

Another family, from Stoke-on-Trent, said their “fit and healthy” father, Tony, 58, was diagnosed with GBS 12 days after being vaccinated. He is currently paralysed and receiving treatment in intensive care. His daughter, Natasha, said doctors initially dismissed the family’s concerns over his condition as he slowly deteriorated in early March.

“It was a battle to get him into hospital, never mind the battle we’re facing to sort financing and support,” Natasha said. Tony’s wife, Nicola, said even if they were able to prove that vaccination had triggered GBS, the payments available through the VDPS “won’t come anyway near what his earnings would have been” if he’s left with a long-term disability and cannot work.

“Genetic experts have asked for Tony’s DNA sample to be used in research to better understand why he reacted this way to the vaccine,” Nicola said. “Authorities need to be clearer about what the full scope of reactions can be. We know all medicine has risks, but we were oblivious.”

Regardless of whether a link is ever established between the jab and GBS, there needs to be greater willingness among authorities to actively engage with potential sufferers of side effects, said Dr Kirchhelle.

Otherwise, he explained, this could fuel dangerous speculation. In some cases, aggrieved families may feel inclined to bypass the VDPS scheme and pursue lawsuits that are “damaging for vaccine uptake, emotionally stressful for everyone involved, and potentially far more costly for the government”.

“Creating an updated compensation scheme would not only help defuse vaccine hesitancy but also signal government confidence in the products that have been licensed,” he added.

“Avoiding the issue because you are afraid of undermining vaccine confidence means that you risk really letting down those individuals who have taken a vaccine for the good of society and appear to have suffered adverse effects.”

The Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said it continuously monitors suspected adverse reactions reported with the Covid jabs, to ascertain “whether the vaccine may have caused the event” or whether it is “likely to be purely coincidental and due to underlying illness”.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the Covid-19 vaccines are safe, effective and provide the best route out of the pandemic, having already saved an estimated 10,000 lives. “All vaccines being used in the UK have undergone robust clinical trials and have met the MHRA’s strict standards of safety, effectiveness and quality,” a spokesperson added.

“The vaccine damage payments scheme provides a financial safety net to help ease the burden on individuals who have, in extremely rare circumstances, experienced harm due to receiving a government-recommended vaccine for a listed disease.”

A group of experts, including Professor Duncan Fairgrieve and Dr Claas Kirchhelle, have written an open letter on the topic of vaccine compensation. Read it here.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-vaccine-side-effects-blood-clots-b1843067.html

The families of people who die from being vaccinated and those who suffer severe, long term, side effects should be properly compensated and supported. That should go without saying. Petiton signed.

 

[andipandi]

The families of people who die from being vaccinated and those who suffer severe, long term, side effects should be properly compensated and supported. That should go without saying. Petition signed.

Government responded

This response was given on 5 August 2021

The Government has a robust system to monitor potential side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine and has added the vaccine to the VDPS. We will consider further action as more evidence becomes available.

The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) was established in 1979 with the aim of easing the financial burden on those individuals where, on very rare occasions, vaccination has caused severe disablement. VDPS is not a compensation scheme, so it does not preclude an individual from seeking damages through the courts. It sits alongside other Government schemes to support anyone with a long-term health condition or a disability. These include Statutory Sick Pay, Universal Credit, ESA, Attendance Allowance and PIP.

COVID-19 was added to the scheme in December 2020, to provide reassurance of the safety of the vaccines being used in the COVID-19 vaccination programme, and to ensure those receiving the COVID-19 vaccine would receive the same support as for other Government-recommended vaccines, in the extremely unlikely event that they were to experience severe disablement as a result of their vaccination.

The MHRA Yellow Card reporting scheme provides a robust system for review, reporting and monitoring of any adverse incidents relating to COVID-19 vaccines. It enables healthcare professionals and the public, including patients, carers and parents, to report any suspected side effect following the administration of a vaccine, so the regulator can take action in response to concerns identified, if appropriate.

Whilst understanding the desire and need to move forward rapidly with processing these claims, it is important to have an established evidence base around causational links between the vaccine and potential side effects. Not doing so risks claims being declined in error based on a lack of evidence, disadvantaging applicants.

More widely, the Government is currently looking at how it can improve the operational aspects of the VDPS to better meet the additional demand created by the inclusion of the COVID-19 vaccine and improve the customer experience. Once more is known about the possible links between the vaccine and potential side effects, it will be considered whether a wider review of the VDPS is needed.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/587380

 

[Mitz]

View attachment 252253





Government responded

This response was given on 5 August 2021

The Government has a robust system to monitor potential side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine and has added the vaccine to the VDPS. We will consider further action as more evidence becomes available.

The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) was established in 1979 with the aim of easing the financial burden on those individuals where, on very rare occasions, vaccination has caused severe disablement. VDPS is not a compensation scheme, so it does not preclude an individual from seeking damages through the courts. It sits alongside other Government schemes to support anyone with a long-term health condition or a disability. These include Statutory Sick Pay, Universal Credit, ESA, Attendance Allowance and PIP.

COVID-19 was added to the scheme in December 2020, to provide reassurance of the safety of the vaccines being used in the COVID-19 vaccination programme, and to ensure those receiving the COVID-19 vaccine would receive the same support as for other Government-recommended vaccines, in the extremely unlikely event that they were to experience severe disablement as a result of their vaccination.

The MHRA Yellow Card reporting scheme provides a robust system for review, reporting and monitoring of any adverse incidents relating to COVID-19 vaccines. It enables healthcare professionals and the public, including patients, carers and parents, to report any suspected side effect following the administration of a vaccine, so the regulator can take action in response to concerns identified, if appropriate.

Whilst understanding the desire and need to move forward rapidly with processing these claims, it is important to have an established evidence base around causational links between the vaccine and potential side effects. Not doing so risks claims being declined in error based on a lack of evidence, disadvantaging applicants.

More widely, the Government is currently looking at how it can improve the operational aspects of the VDPS to better meet the additional demand created by the inclusion of the COVID-19 vaccine and improve the customer experience. Once more is known about the possible links between the vaccine and potential side effects, it will be considered whether a wider review of the VDPS is needed.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/587380

Yeah, saw that last night. Pretty much the expected response, me thinks.