Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinations

Another article from Germany: Post-COVID vaccination syndrome: What do we know?

Like long COVID, post-COVID vaccination syndrome is characterized by a wide variety of symptoms and clinical pictures including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME), migraines, muscle pain or cardiovascular diseases.

As multifaceted as the symptoms may be, they have one thing in common: They can occur in those affected shortly after COVID vaccination.

Many people think they have post-COVID vaccination syndrome because they developed such symptoms after their shot.

From the point of view of those affected, this is completely understandable, says Harald Prüss from Berlin's Charité hospital and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). But, he adds, just because the symptoms occurred after the shot doesn't mean it caused them.

Prüss explains that post-COVID vaccination syndrome "is totally overestimated in its dimensions."

(...)

Additionally, one of the only ways to say with any degree of certainty that a person is suffering from post-COVID vaccination syndrome rather than long COVID is if that person started experiencing symptoms shortly — weeks, not months — after getting the jab and had not been diagnosed with COVID at any point before. This can be difficult, because people may have had a COVID infection yet not known it.

(...)

Dr. Christine Falk, president of the German Society of Immunology, says the link between long COVID and post-COVID vaccination syndrome could be a cross-reaction with the spike protein — which is created by a vaccine or is an element of it — and the infection itself.

There are some people who, after being infected or vaccinated, not only create normal antibodies against the spike protein, but also experience a sort of cross reaction that produces antibodies that are inadvertently able to recognize endogenous structures — i.e., essential structures created by the body itself. These are called autoantibodies and are present in many people with autoimmune diseases.

That could be why post-COVID vaccination syndrome and long COVID have such similar symptoms.

With all of that said, Falk's idea is only a theory at this point, with much more research needed on the topic.​
 
Merged thread

Covid vaccine compensation demanded by hundreds as BioNTech hit by lawsuits in Germany

Pharmaceuticals producer BioNTech is facing compensation claims in Germany after two law firms claimed clients suffered lasting health problems as a result of the company’s coronavirus jab.

BioNTech, which is based in Mainz, entered court this week in its first German hearing.

The case has been brought against the German biotechnology company on behalf of a middle-aged medical worker.

A woman is seeking €150,000 in damages after suffering from heart arrhythmia and brain fog following her vaccination.

The case is being heard in a regional court in Hamburg.

Her case is one of several hundred brought against the company.

The total cost of compensation being pursued by two law firms has topped €1million.
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Covid vaccine compensation demanded by hundreds as BioNTech hit by lawsuits in Germany (msn.com)
 
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Tragic News: Actress Succumbs to Assisted Suicide Following Covid-19 Booster Injuries

Pavelek was diagnosed with an incurable chronic neurological illness known as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a long-term illness with a wide range of symptoms that affects daily activities. At times, this condition may confine people to their beds. ME/CFS can worsen if individuals with this illness overwork themselves. The model was also suspected to have respiratory ALS, a neurodegenerative disorder that weakens the muscles involved in breathing and swallowing.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...ss-succumbs-assisted-suicide-following-covid/
 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-n...Hm2Bhh-ZumkqHgM8TJkZPqOGGUfn-vO2YjPUMLrQTT25M

In the Telegraph today
Joe Biden launched ‘Orwellian Ministry of Truth’ to shut down Covid dissent, judge says
Court backs claims Biden administration had engaged in a ‘massive’ attempt to stop Americans questioning the efficacy of vaccines online.


............

"The ruling came after it was revealed last month that UK ministers set up a counter-disinformation unit which was used to target lockdown critics and those questioning the mass vaccination of children.

The UK Government used an artificial intelligence firm to monitor social media sites and flag opposition to vaccine passports."

There is a paywall but it costs nothing to subscribe for the next month and 50p per month for the following two months. Thereafter it is £14.99 per month but subscriptions can be cancelled at any time.
 
ICMRA (International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities) statement on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines

This is not the only statement but the one most relevant to us:

Long COVID and vaccines
Scientific evidence shows that infection with SARS-CoV-2 can lead to long COVID. This condition can lead to long-term organ damage (cardiovascular, metabolic, neurologic, gastrointestinal, renal, etc.) and even death several weeks or months after the initial symptoms of infection have resolved.

Several real-world data studies indicate that vaccinated people who are later infected with SARS-CoV-2 are less likely to report symptoms of long COVID than unvaccinated people. More research is needed to determine how common this is.

Some information circulating on social media has claimed that COVID-19 vaccines could be associated with long COVID. There has been no safety signal from the very large body of data held by international regulators suggesting that long COVID is a possible side effect of COVID-19 vaccination.​
 
Binkie4 said:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-n...Hm2Bhh-ZumkqHgM8TJkZPqOGGUfn-vO2YjPUMLrQTT25M

In the Telegraph today
Joe Biden launched ‘Orwellian Ministry of Truth’ to shut down Covid dissent, judge says
Court backs claims Biden administration had engaged in a ‘massive’ attempt to stop Americans questioning the efficacy of vaccines online.


............

"The ruling came after it was revealed last month that UK ministers set up a counter-disinformation unit which was used to target lockdown critics and those questioning the mass vaccination of children.

The UK Government used an artificial intelligence firm to monitor social media sites and flag opposition to vaccine passports."

There is a paywall but it costs nothing to subscribe for the next month and 50p per month for the following two months. Thereafter it is £14.99 per month but subscriptions can be cancelled at any time.
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Good for Biden. And well done to the UK’s counter-disinformation unit. You can’t promulgate dangerous nonsense online in a public health crisis any more than you can shout “fire” in a crowded theatre.

The Telegraph paywall is best defeated with archive.ph, by the way.
 
Study finds no increased risk of rare neurological events after covid vaccination
https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/study-finds-no-increased-risk-of-rare-neurological-events-after-covid-vaccination/

An increased risk was, however, seen after covid-19 infection

A study of more than eight million people published by The BMJ today finds no increased risk of rare neurological events after covid-19 vaccination.

An increased risk of Bell’s palsy (facial weakness), encephalomyelitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord) and Guillain-Barré syndrome (a nerve condition) was, however, seen after covid-19 infection.

Following reports that some people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccines, the European Medicines Agency listed Guillain-Barré syndrome as a rare side effect of these vaccines. However, so far the results from research into the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome - and other immune mediated neurological disorders - after covid-19 vaccination have been mixed.

To address this, researchers set out to study the association between covid-19 vaccines, infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for covid-19), and risk of immune mediated neurological events.

Their findings are based on data from two large electronic primary care health record databases in the UK and Spain.

They included 8.3 million individuals who received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine (Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson) and 735,870 unvaccinated individuals with a positive covid-19 test result.

A further 14.3 million people from the general population were also studied retrospectively (before the pandemic) to estimate historical background rates. This group were unvaccinated and had no previous covid, because neither existed at the time.

The events of interest to the research team were four immune mediated neurological disorders: Bell’s palsy (facial weakness), encephalomyelitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord), Guillain-Barré syndrome (a nerve condition), and transverse myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord).

Rates of these disorders were estimated in the 21 days after the first vaccine dose, 90 days after a positive test result, and between 2017 and 2019 for background rates in the general population group.

Overall, the researchers found that post-vaccine rates were consistent with expected (background) population rates for Bell’s palsy, encephalomyelitis and Guillain-Barré syndrome. Rates of transverse myelitis were rare (less than 5 events in all vaccinated groups) so could not be analysed.

Rates of Bell’s palsy, encephalomyelitis and Guillain-Barré syndrome were, however, higher than expected after covid-19 infection.

This is an observational study so can’t establish cause, and the researchers cannot rule out the possibility that unknown differences between groups or misclassification of disorders may have affected their results.

But they point out that several other studies have also reported increased risks of immune mediated neurological events after covid-19 infection, suggesting their results are robust.

As such, they say: “We found no safety signal for any of the studied immune mediated neurological events after vaccination against covid-19. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 was, however, associated with an increased risk of Bell’s palsy, encephalomyelitis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome.”

Further evidence is needed to understand the long term adverse events of vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection, while larger cohorts are also needed to study the effect of vaccination on different age groups, particularly among younger populations, they add.

Importantly, all risks - even those observed after SARS-CoV-2 infection - are small in absolute terms for the single individual, write experts in a linked editorial. However, they note that even small absolute risks “can lead to a substantial burden on the healthcare system in the context of mass vaccination and widespread infection.”

Researchers and clinicians have a responsibility to discuss these findings with affected patients and their families, they say, while at the same time acknowledging the inherent uncertainties in making patient level inferences from population level studies.

One approach would be to explain that although neurological conditions do occasionally occur shortly after covid-19 vaccination, good evidence from very large studies shows that these conditions are no more common among vaccinated people than among unvaccinated people.

“We may never be able to tell exactly what caused an individual to develop a neurological condition, but covid-19 vaccination is a highly unlikely reason for most,” they conclude.
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Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-03-02/debates/CBFF32D7-C7DB-4225-843C-3BF8FAB1DDED/VaccineDamagePaymentsAct1979

I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate, which is the first such debate on the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 since 24 March 2015.

Vaccines have been our major public health defence against covid-19. This debate is not about all those millions who have benefited from vaccination; it is about the tens of thousands who did the right thing, were vaccinated but then, as a result, suffered death, serious injury or other life-changing adverse consequences. The vaccine damage payment scheme was extended to cover covid-19 vaccinations in recognition of the potential importance of this issue.

I am delighted that the Prime Minister also clearly believes that this is an important issue. On 11 August last year, he wrote to Kate Scott, whose husband Jamie, a fit 44-year-old software engineer, spent 124 days in hospital following severe brain injury caused by the vaccine. The Prime Minister said, referring to Kate’s husband Jamie and his family from Warwickshire,

“you’re not a statistic and must not be ignored”.

The Prime Minister went on to thank Kate Scott for her suggested changes to the vaccine damage payment scheme and promised that the Government would consider the case for reform.

Why, then, is there no tangible evidence of the Government having done anything in the six months since the Prime Minister said those words? The Government have repeatedly blocked my Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Bill, which was briefly debated in this House on 10 September. Why have they not even uprated the £120,000 payment under the scheme to take account of inflation since 2007, when it was last reviewed? On this basis, the maximum should now be over £177,000. Why have no payments yet been made under the scheme, even where a full inquest has established that the vaccine was the cause of death?

That, sadly, is the situation of Lisa Shaw’s family. The 44-year-old BBC Radio Newcastle presenter died from a brain haemorrhage confirmed by a coroner in August as having been caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine, as reported in The Sunday Telegraph on 5 December 2021. Another case about which somebody has written to me arose from a decision by the Westminster coroner who recorded the AstraZeneca vaccine as the cause of death on her mother’s death certificate. Neither of those families is yet to receive any acknowledgement that they qualify under the VDPS, let alone that they will be compensated. Are the Government disputing these coroners’ verdicts? I sincerely hope not, and perhaps the Minister can confirm that in her response.

The Sunday Times reported on 27 February this year that 920 coronavirus vaccination injury claims had been registered, but none has been accepted or been the subject of any payment. That article referred to Zion Spit, described as “a ridiculously healthy” 48-year-old antique dealer from Cumbria, whose death was confirmed as having been caused by the vaccine. His partner of 21 years and fiancée, Vikki Spit, has been in touch with me to express her solidarity with my efforts to obtain redress from the Government and her frustration at the Government’s refusal to engage with victims and their families.

Will the Minister please tell us now when the first payments will be made under the VDPS, and why, despite having told me that 26 staff are now processing claims—11 more than in December—no payments have yet been made? Will she also say how many medical assessors are currently reviewing outstanding cases, and when the backlog will be cleared?

Jim Shannon
(Strangford) (DUP)
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Edited: Removed link to IMO conspiracy theory.
 
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Shadrach Loom said:
Good for Biden. And well done to the UK’s counter-disinformation unit. You can’t promulgate dangerous nonsense online in a public health crisis any more than you can shout “fire” in a crowded theatre.

The Telegraph paywall is best defeated with archive.ph, by the way.
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It's not always easy to differentiate between "dangerous nonsense" and the truth and it's in this space that we lived during the pandemic.

Reflecting on how this was handled and is being handled (covid hasn't disappeared) may produce an uncomfortable need to sit in two places that don't cohere well, for example a need to vaccinate widely but for the individual to give informed consent. How do we manage this? In the US it has been taken to the Courts with a focus on the abrogation of the First Amendment during the pandemic. In the UK Parliament has begun some debate see https://hansard.parliament.uk/commo...47DD-A79C-4EFD10F10C2D/VaccinesPotentialHarms, but there has been considerable reluctance.
Do we not need to reflect on these issues?
 
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Binkie4 said:
It's not always easy to differentiate between "dangerous nonsense" and the truth and it's in this space that we lived during the pandemic.

Reflecting on how this was handled and is being handled (covid hasn't disappeared) may produce an uncomfortable need to sit in two places that don't cohere well, for example a need to vaccinate widely but for the individual to give informed consent. How do we manage this? In the US it has been taken to the Courts with a focus on the abrogation of the First Amendment during the pandemic. In the UK Parliament has begun some debate see https://hansard.parliament.uk/commo...47DD-A79C-4EFD10F10C2D/VaccinesPotentialHarms, but there has been considerable reluctance.
Do we not need to reflect on these issues?
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I’d say not. Who wants to go down a rabbit hole concerning the exact meaning of informed consent in relation to Covid vaccines?

And the moderators would probably be uneasy about allowing this thread, or indeed this forum, to be somewhere in which posters were free to comment on the sanity and probity of Andrew Bridgen, whose comments in Parliament you link to.
 
I’d also say that something has gone awry if people on S4ME are linking to stories on The Gateway Pundit, which is beyond just being fringe and firmly in the fake news camp.
 
Shadrach Loom said:
I’d also say that something has gone awry if people on S4ME are linking to stories on The Gateway Pundit, which is beyond just being fringe and firmly in the fake news camp.
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The Gateway Pundit may be a fake news website but that actress did indeed commit suicide. She was from Slovakia so this news item popped up in my Google alerts days before others started posting it on S4ME because there was an article about it in the Hungarian-language media of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia (parameter.sk, which is a normal news site). I posted it in the regional thread.

That article references a Slovak article and you can also find the story on some of the most-read Slovak news sites, like sme.sk or aktuality.sk.

The latter two don't mention vaccines though, just the rest of the story and they all mention ME/CFS. However, that other Slovak article that the Hungarian language one used as source says she posted about the vaccine on her Instagram.

I wouldn't be surprised if some websites just didn't want to mention the vaccine part. We had a similar story here recently where a famous athlete recovered from cancer, which was newsworthy and widely reported, however, more serious websites didn't mention that he attributed his cancer to a covid vaccine. I think they just didn't want people to conclude that the vaccines may cause cancer. One can argue if full reporting is better or keeping a very scientific approach in order not to spread misinformation.

So all in all, my conclusion is that the Slovak actress's story is true and if it is not, then it must be some pretty big hoax, not your typical fake news that is easy to disprove quickly.
 
Binkie4 said:
In the UK Parliament has begun some debate see https://hansard.parliament.uk/commo...47DD-A79C-4EFD10F10C2D/VaccinesPotentialHarms, but there has been considerable reluctance.
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I have read that brief debate. It is basically just a short speech from MP, Andrew Bridgen, who was thrown out of his political party for spreading misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines. He spouts a lot of nonsense he has presumably believed from conspiracy websites, and is disagreed with by a government minister. End of debate. I doubt there were much more than the 3 people who spoke present.

We can by all means discuss real data, but there's no point giving a voice to people who have fallen down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Why would we want to contaminate discussion of real data about the relatively rare instances of people suffering severe symptoms after their vaccinations with this nonsense?

Edit: To clarify, this is my personal view, not a moderation team ruling.
 
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Wyva said:
The Gateway Pundit may be a fake news website but that actress did indeed commit suicide. She was from Slovakia so this news item popped up in my Google alerts days before others started posting it on S4ME because there was an article about it in the Hungarian-language media of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia (parameter.sk, which is a normal news site). I posted it in the regional thread.

That article references a Slovak article and you can also find the story on some of the most-read Slovak news sites, like sme.sk or aktuality.sk.

The latter two don't mention vaccines though, just the rest of the story and they all mention ME/CFS. However, that other Slovak article that the Hungarian language one used as source says she posted about the vaccine on her Instagram.

I wouldn't be surprised if some websites just didn't want to mention the vaccine part. We had a similar story here recently where a famous athlete recovered from cancer, which was newsworthy and widely reported, however, more serious websites didn't mention that he attributed his cancer to a covid vaccine. I think they just didn't want people to conclude that the vaccines may cause cancer. One can argue if full reporting is better or keeping a very scientific approach in order not to spread misinformation.

So all in all, my conclusion is that the Slovak actress's story is true and if it is not, then it must be some pretty big hoax, not your typical fake news that is easy to disprove quickly.
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I don’t doubt that the story is true or the actress attributed illness to vaccination. I just think that it’s bad practice to link to sites like that, rather than (say) the source you chose.
 
Trish said:
We can by all means discuss real data, but there's no point giving a voice to people who have fallen down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Why would we want to contaminate discussion of real data about the relatively rare instances of people suffering severe symptoms after their vaccinations with this nonsense?
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I'm not sure why on a gut level I find this position worrisome, but I do.
 
duncan said:
I'm not sure why on a gut level I find this position worrisome, but I do.
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That was a personal view, not a moderation team decision. If there is any moderation decision on what can and can't be discussed here, it will be labelled as a moderation message and in orange type. I apologise for not making that clear in my post. I'll amend it.

If someone wants to say why they think we should share, give credence to and discuss information not backed up by evidence from reputable sources, and/or personal experience of members, and instead spend time discussing unevidenced claims derived from conspiracists, please do share your point of view.

Edited to fix incomplete quote.
 
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Mij said:
Katarina Pavelek said her goodbyes on her Instagram. It's truly sad.
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I found this sad too.
I did look up respiratory ALS, which she described as "suspected".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALS
"Motor neuron loss continues until the ability to eat, speak, move, and finally the ability to breathe is lost.[3]"

I wonder how much this was involved.
 
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From the link Binkie4 posted:

Differential diagnosis[edit]
Because symptoms of ALS can be similar to those of a wide variety of other, more treatable diseases or disorders, appropriate tests must be conducted to exclude the possibility of other conditions.
 
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