MHRA and Covid Vaccines Surveillance [Article from 13/12/24]

Our series on Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine was sparked off by a remark from one of our readers.

He is an eye doctor who saw an abnormally high number of cases of Bell’s Palsy during the months of the vaccine’s rollout—perhaps we should say vaccines. Bell’s Palsy is a frightening progressive weakness of facial muscles, usually one-sided. Most cases recover, but some do not. At the time, we asked, “How would you like to go around with half your face hanging down and unable to see properly?”

We have summarised our series of posts on Comirnaty and ask you to refresh your memory before reading further. At the bottom of this post is a series of relevant pieces we have produced since TTE began. 

The third of our summary posts wraps up how far we got.

We promised to keep tabs on any major step towards understanding the properties of Comirnaty, having identified some very large gaps in the evidence base.

One of the most contentious parts of the whole saga (apart from the mode of action) is the potential harms of the Covid vaccines. The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine’s demise is a case in point.

In this post, we reported that in response to a 2022 FOI request on the number of Yellow Card reports for Bell’s Palsy over the previous three years (FOI 21-750), the MHRA responded:

After the table, the responders wrote:

All is well then, thanks to the “evaluation of electronic healthcare record data.” Please remember that.

However, the underreporting rate in the Yellow Card system can be as high as 98%. Anthony Haywood, a member of the public, asked a simple question: 

“Dear Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, would you please supply your estimate of the degree of underreporting to your ‘Yellow Card’ scheme, and subsequently your estimate of the actual number of deaths and adverse events, likely to be related to the covid 19 vaccine, at least in the view of the injured party.”

The MHRA’s answer was interesting: 

“The MHRA do not hold an estimate of the degree of underreporting to the Yellow Card scheme, nor an estimate of the actual number of deaths and adverse events, likely to be related to the COVID-19 vaccines.” 

This is a contradictory statement given that the MHRA reported following up 54% of deaths possibly linked to this or the other Covid vaccines in answering an FOI request.

In the twilight of our neuronal function, we ask: If you do not have an estimate of possible linked vaccine-related deaths, how can you possibly know you are following 54%? Percentage of what we ask? 

Of course, they do not have an estimate. They only licensed the stuff, so why on earth would they be interested in its effects?

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