Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Careers

Do doctors have to have the covid-19 vaccine?

BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n810 (Published 29 March 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n810

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Covid-19: Is the UK heading towards mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers?

Rapid Response:

Not routine fallout

Dear Editor

K Polyakova writes[1]:

“Nevertheless, what I am currently struggling with is the failure to report the reality of the morbidity caused by our current vaccination program within the health service and staff population.”

Or the population as a whole. As of 21 March the PfizerBioNTech product had received 40,883 Yellow Card reports from 13m doses (1 in 317) and the Oxford/AstraZeneca 99,817 from 15.8m doses (1 in 158), or precisely double the rate. The Pfizer had accumulated 116,627 total adverse reactions 283 of which were fatal and the Oxford 377,487 total adverse reactions of 421 were fatal [2,3,4].

Also, by now the US VAERS database has accumulated for the Pfizer and Moderna products 2,248 cases “where patient died”: this in barely 3 months is one fifth of the total number of reports for all vaccines “where patient died” (10,957) since the database began in 1990 [5,6].

Both Yellow Cards and VAERS are of course passive reporting systems which are only expected to pick up a fraction of the data.

[1] K Polyakova, ‘ Re: Do doctors have to have the covid-19 vaccine?’, 2 April 2021, https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n810/rr-14

[2]www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-...

[3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

[4] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

[5] https://medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=O...

[6] https://medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=O...

Competing interests: AgeofAutism.com, an on-line daily journal, concerns itself with the potential environmental sources for the proliferation of autism, neurological impairment, immune dysfunction and chronic disease. I receive no payment as UK Editor. I also moderate comments for the on-line journal ‘The Defender’ for which I am paid. I am also a member of the UK Medical Freedom Alliance

06 April 2021
John Stone
UK Editor
AgeofAutism.com
London N22