The newest study on vaccines says that COVID-19 vaccines may be linked to very rare cases of brain, heart, and blood problems.
Scientists from the Global Vaccine Data Network looked at 99 million people who got the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. This looked at 13 medical problems to see if the vaccine affected their spread in 8 different countries. So, the study did show that the shots did lead to more health problems with the heart, brain, and blood.
There was myocarditis in people who got the first, second, and third doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines. This is a disease of the heart muscle that can last for a long time or a short time. People who got the third dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine were more likely to get pericarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle.
People who got the AstraZeneca vaccine had a 2.5 times greater chance of getting Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disease. They also discovered a possible risk for transverse myelitis, which is inflammation of the spinal cord, and a rise in acute disseminated encephalomyelitis infections in the brain and spinal cord.
Over 13.5 million people got a form of the COVID-19 vaccine, and some of them did have bad reactions or effects. This made the debate about the vaccine’s benefits very public.
The lead author of the study said, “The size of the population in this study increased the chance of finding rare potential vaccine safety signals.”
A professor of medicine who wasn’t involved in the study, Dr. Siegel, said this about the results: “It always comes down to a risk/benefit analysis of what you are more afraid of—the side effects of the vaccine or the virus itself, which can have long-term side effects like brain fog, fatigue, cough, and heart problems.”
