All posts in this series
- About Covishield & Covaxin
- COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout & Efficacy
- Covid19 Vaccine Risks
- Covishield is Back in News
The covid vaccine Covishield aka AstraZeneca has been in the news again, due to an admission of a rare side effect caused by the vaccine. UK-based AstraZeneca has acknowledged in court that its Covid vaccine can cause a rare blood clotting condition, British media reports said on Monday. The admission is about thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which involves the formation of blood clots accompanied by a low platelet count, which is crucial for blood clotting. This admission was made in a court in the UK, in response to a class action lawsuit by people who took the vaccine.
In light of this new development, we are revisiting the covid-19 vaccine rollout and side effects in a series of short articles, bringing into attention how the whole episode began and where it has reached.
In India, as well as various countries worldwide where AstraZeneca vaccine was given to healthy people, there have been large number of side effects and also deaths, which are attributed to the vaccines by the critics and negated by the doctors and medical community. However we are not aware of what studies the negations are based on.
Considering the fact that vaccine rollouts historically were stopped when just 3 people died, stating that only a small number of people are affected by this condition is not a palatable excuse. The vaccines, although claimed as voluntary in courts, by the various parties involved in its enforcement, was mandatorily given to people via social pressure, employment compulsions, ration denial and coercing and in some cases, even getting calls from local police stations. So some healthy people who were forced to take the vaccine, due to various kind of pressure have died and suffered side effects and have their life destroyed. This is not a trivial issue at all.
Some doctors say, the rare condition is already known and reported in the inserts and if you don’t have any issue beyond 21 days, then you are okay. Let’s look at this argument.
How do we know that a vaccine candidate does not have a side effect that goes beyond a short timeframe post vaccination or even 5 years post vaccination? Historically it is done via long term studies. Many vaccine candidates historically have had long term issues that crippled their rollout. As far as we know, no such long term studies have been done for any of the Covid-19 vaccines. So on what basis are the doctors forming their opinion that if 21 days have passed, then whatever happened to you is not connected to the vaccine? Unless we study this in depth, “we don’t know” is the only answer that comes to mind. Looking at the disdain and alacrity with which doctors and medical fraternity dismiss vaccine causes for deaths, does not look good at all for reasoning and science. In addition, all doctors generally don’t get time to study research reports in detail and instead they follow guidelines provided by national and international governing bodies. So how are they so sure that the vaccines are not cause for the sudden death and heart attacks we have been witnessing since 2021, which are attributed to ridiculous reasons from dancing to music to getting sun exposure.
In addition, it must be noted that a vaccine is different from a medicine. Medicine is given to sick people and vaccines are given to healthy people. So experimental or poorly tested vaccines can harm healthy people and destroy their lives while poorly tested medicines may only kill patients in dire conditions. So the two cannot be compared at all.
In the following articles of this series we will see how there were certain known risks of the Covishield vaccine and give a brief overview of the C19 vaccination drive in India.