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Medicine EU

What Is Going On With the AstraZeneca/Oxford Vaccine? 340

Posted by BeauHD from the it's-a-mess dept.
A whole list of countries -- including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Latvia -- have suspended dosing of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients. The company and international regulators say there is no evidence the shot is to blame, but that isn't stopping countries from taking action out of an abundance of caution. Derek Lowe, a medical chemist working in the pharmaceutical industry, explains what's going on with this vaccine: I think that there are several distinct levels to this problem. The first, obviously, is medical. The big question is, are the reports of vascular problems greater than one would expect in the vaccinated population as a whole? It's not clear to me what the answer is, and it may very well be "No, they aren't." That CNBC link above quotes Michael Head at Southampton as saying that the data so far look like the problems show up at at least the same levels, and may even be lower in the vaccinated group. AstraZeneca has said that they're aware of 15 events of deep vein thrombosis and 22 events pulmonary embolisms, but that's in 17 million people who have had at least one shot -- and they say that is indeed "much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size." It also appears to be similar to what's been seen with the other coronavirus vaccines, which rather than meaning "they're all bad" looks like they're all showing the same baseline signal of such events across a broad population, without adding to it.

In that case, this could be an example of what I warned about back in December (and many others have warned about as well), the post hoc ergo propter hoc "false side effects" problem. I've been looking this morning, and so far have not found anyone clearly stating that the problems seen are running higher in the vaccinated patients [...]. I realize that there's a possibility (not a likely one, though) that some particular batch of vaccine is more problematic, but I haven't seen any solid evidence of that, either.

The second half of the medical problem is naturally what happens when you suspend dosing of what is, in many cases in the EU, the only vaccine available. We've been seeing cases falling here in the US ever since a peak on the first week of January -- many of us were worried about what might have been a rise in February but which now just seems to have been a plateau, with cases continuing to drop since then. But many European countries are definitely seeing another wave of infections, and the EU case numbers as a whole are going in the opposite direction to the US ones. There are surely a lot of reasons for this, with new viral variants being one, slow vaccine rollouts being another, and now complete vaccination halts set to add even more. Put as bluntly as possible, even if the AZ/Oxford vaccine has these side effects (which again, I don't see any evidence for yet), you are still very likely to kill more people by not giving it. Lowe goes on to question what good the EMA and World Health Organization's recommendations and regulatory approvals are when one European country after another shuts down its use.

He also brings up the third problem, which is public confidence. "The AZ/Oxford vaccine has been in trouble there since the day the first data came out," writes Lowe. "The efficacy numbers looked lower than the other vaccines that had reported by then, and as mentioned, the presentation of the data was really poorly handled and continued to be so for weeks. Now with these dosing suspensions, I have to wonder if this vaccine is ever going to lose the dark cloud it's currently sitting under..."
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What Is Going On With the AstraZeneca/Oxford Vaccine? More

What Is Going On With the AstraZeneca/Oxford Vaccine?

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  • Politics (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There's probably nothing major wrong with the AZ vaccine. It's already shown to be less effective, and it's got known flu-like side effects for a few days after application for some proportion of people (incidentally, lots of people seem to report 2AM cold sweats - could that be when the 5G chip activation takes place? ;-))

    However, all that said, the real reason behind all of this is that it's broadly "British". The UK government has been a bit funny about exports, and Brexit of course looms large over us.

    • What's interesting is when you compare how different countries are doing their vaccines. The UK has vaccinated far more people (26m; ~40%) than other EU countries, but that's only the first dose. When you look a the number of poeple who have received both doses, the UK has only managed about 2.4% of its population.

      Source: https://www.euronews.com/2021/... [euronews.com]

      I guess this can be explained in two ways. First, UK policy was to get as many people with a single dose as soon as possible. Second, other vaccines appear

      • The UK shift to a longer interval between the two doses to 12 weeks was announced on 30 December 2020 and seems to be both well reasoned and working. I wonder why other countries did not follow suit. I get that it is not entirely according to the instructions, but there seem to be some easy political points. I mean, if Hungary can vaccinate with Sputnik...

    • The problem is it shouldn't be about politics.

      The problem is as a culture our understanding of Science is very remedial, as well our ability to really weigh risks is idiotic.

      We live in a world of uncertainty and risk. How we deal with uncertainty and risk is what can really define us as a culture.

      There are so many people who think Science is just a collection of facts where it is just a formal way of asking questions, and seeing if the answers could be true.
      We are so bad at risks we both at the same time o

  • What do you mean "Whats going on?" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:15AM (#61167786)

    Apparently the person who wrote this has paid zero attention to the last year. Humans are reactive. Humans act based on fear and emotion. Science is only science to most people when it matches their world view.

    My only question is, "When will the COVID fear porn stop?" Or maybe the better question is, "What will usurp the COVID story?"

    --
    We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The governments that made the decision to put AZ on hold were being advised by scientists.

      So either the scientists said hold it, or the politicians decided to against their advice. Going against the scientific advice could look bad when each country comes to review its response, usually through some kind of public enquiry.

      Either there is some data we aren't seeing that has lead scientists to a temporary pause for further investigation, or politicians are being overly cautious. My guess is the former, and in

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Train0987 ( 1059246 )

        Plenty of other "scientists" are saying the complete opposite. Perhaps your absolute faith in credentialism is the problem? Some of us are capable of thinking for ourselves.

        • Plenty of other "scientists" are saying the complete opposite
          And who of them were involved in evaluating the problem?

          An educated guess is one thing, I like to do that all the time. But analyzing the real problem having the real data is completely different.

          Germany has a delievery problem with vaccines. Do you really think it was an easy decision, uninformed, knee jerk, to suspend one vaccine for now?

          And that for 7 countries? The rest of the EU probably soon to follow?

        • Re:What do you mean "Whats going on?" (Score:5, Insightful)

          by invid ( 163714 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @11:22AM (#61168184)
          "Credentialism", lol. I need to base my beliefs on something. Without building a biology lab in my basement and leaning to sequence RNA, my best bet in acting according to science is to give greater weight to those with credentials than to those without credentials. Do you know what would be really stupid? Rejecting advice given by people with credentials just because they have credentials. People with credentials could be wrong and certainly have been wrong, but those institutions that give out credentials have some sort of filtering system. A much more rigorous filtering system than internet search.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I haven't investigated personally, what I'm saying is that governments appoint scientific advisors whose job is to digest and present the science. Often that means explaining the various views of the scientific community, and how they should be weighted.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by N1AK ( 864906 )
        Have you got any evidence that the hold was recommended by scientists in those countries? I haven't seen anything demonstrating that is the case, and I don't think it should be assumed. There is very little political risk in stopping vaccinations for a few days even if the risk is almost certainly imagined, but the political risk in giving 100,000s of people a vaccine that turns out not to be completely safe...

        I'm not blaming Europeans for the phenomena but it seems very likely that the recent conflict w

        • Have you got any evidence that the hold was recommended by scientists in those countries?
          Yes.

          Next question?

          Well, my question would be: how stupid are you?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          No, what I'm saying is that the way it is supposed to be done is based on advice from scientific advisors. It is possible that politicians didn't take any, or ignored the advice they were given, but doing so will come back on them later.

          I doubt it has anything to do with brexit. The EU was momentarily thinking of breaking international law just to get their hands on more AZ vaccine. Also the EU itself has recommended that they keep administering AZ, it's individual countries that have decided to pause.

    • Re:What do you mean "Whats going on?" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:22AM (#61167982) Homepage Journal

      People's emotions are not responsive to statistics, so they can be frightened by things that are so improbable it's like planning your life around winning the lottery. But on the *flip* side, people can also be insensitive to risks that are high enough that they should rationally modify their behavior. They're worried about satantic cults kidnapping their children, but they don't wear their seat belts.

      Some people are afraid of the vaccine, but not particularly afraid of COVID. That's ass-backwards. By now it's clear that serious side effects with the approved vaccines are extremely rare, but there's good reason to be concerned about COVID. Last year it was the leading cause of death in the US [jamanetwork.com] -- you were 8x as likely to be killed by COVID-19 as in a car accident. We're getting much better at managing serious cases so your death risk *now* is probably lower, but about 10% of COVID infections result in unpleasant sequelae that last for months -- so called "long-haul covid".

      Whether or not you're afraid is neither here nor there; it's how you should rationally alter your behavior because of COVID-19. Most reasonable people aren't *afraid* of car accidents, but they do wear their seatbelts. I'm continuing to social distance and I'm going to get the vaccine as soon as I can, not because I'm afraid, but because those things are rational given the current conditions.

      • well car crashes don't care if you're young or old, and many younger people do know they aren't very likely to die or even suffer greatly from Corona. it's "reasonable" in the most egoistical sense of the word, but sadly it's still reasonable.

        • Most (or all?) cases in Germany affect young women. In total it is less than ten, forgot the correct number.

          So: if you are a young woman, and know you have a 1 in a million chance to die to stroke if you take the vaccine, are you gonna take it?

    • Apparently the person who wrote this has paid zero attention to the last year. Humans are reactive. Humans act based on fear and emotion. Science is only science to most people when it matches their world view.

      My only question is, "When will the COVID fear porn stop?" Or maybe the better question is, "What will usurp the COVID story?"

      You poke fun of those not paying attention, and then ask these questions?

      We're still in the middle of a global pandemic. Needless to say, it's kind of a big deal, and we probably shouldn't be looking to "usurp" that anytime soon, unless you feel like being purposely dismissive to the ongoing issue at hand affecting the globe.

      And this isn't COVID fear porn necessarily. Watching a dozen countries develop vaccines in record time and then force-feed that onto the masses...there is some naturally understandabl

    • I feel a big part of the problem of Science only is followed when it matches peoples world view is how we deal with explaining it, and the education around science.

      For most people you are going to expect an 8th grade level of education of general science. (as in high school and up, they break into different disciplines, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology... In which you would expect a High School Graduate to only take some of those classes. For those who go to college and even if they study one of the

  • statistics (Score:3, Informative)

    by stanbrown ( 724448 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:17AM (#61167790) Homepage
    I heard a report on NPR that quoted a doctor from WHO that stated the percentage of persons suffering from clots was below the normal statistics for the 5 million who have been administered this vaccine.

    • Re:statistics (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vintermann ( 400722 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:51AM (#61168076) Homepage

      You can't blame countries for being cautious when AstraZeneca has been indemnified [reuters.com] for all such negative reactions to the vaccine.

      It's not just about percentages. When some of the deaths are healthy, young healthcare workers [www.fhi.no] there's reason to suspect something might be going on, like an adverse combination with another drug. Whether whatever that is is serious enough to stop vaccination with it is another matter.

      • The link you posted doesn't say there were any deaths. Have there been?

      • When some of the deaths are healthy, young healthcare workers

        Young, healthy healthcare workers got get DVT before COVID. DVT just happens to a certain percentage of people. Yes, there are risk factors that make it more likely, but it can happen to anyone.

        To move on to suspecting something might be going on, you'd have to show that the rate of DVT post-vaccine is significantly higher, and so far that has not been shown.

        IMO, this is some governments looking for cover for their slow vaccination rates. "We were just being cautious about this new vaccine" sounds a lot

  • Deflection (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:17AM (#61167792) Homepage

    The answer is simple; nothing is going on with the AZ vaccine. Countries in the EU are making stuff up to deflect from the botched EU vaccine procurement program.

    • The answer is simple; nothing is going on with the AZ vaccine. Countries in the EU are making stuff up to deflect from the botched EU vaccine procurement program.

      So they're trying to distract from slow vaccination progress by... slowing down the vaccination process even more? Makes sense!

    • Ursula von der Leyen threatens to block vaccine exports to UK. [youtu.be] "The European Union has threatened to restrict vaccine exports to the UK to "make sure Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible".

      Meanwhile, Australia, which would actually like to get these vaccines, is being blocked as well. The EU displayed its incompetence for all to see, and just keeps digging the hole deeper. Rails against nationalism and protectionism, while engaging in the exact same behavior itself. If only there were some way fo

  • Nobody wants to stick their neck out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sid crimson ( 46823 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:18AM (#61167798)

    Death is a sad thing, no question about it.

    No vaccine in the history of the world is without some side effects for some people. As the the fine summary alludes, the likelihood of death is greater without the vaccine than it is with the vaccine.

    However, the likelihood of death is a statistical issue; death itself is a personal issue. If someone who is otherwise healthy and is "very low risk" in terms of COVID mortality dies from the COVID vaccine, some would consider this an "avoidable tragedy' and it could be traction on social media.

    And therein lies the problem. Social media brings issues that otherwise wouldn't be heard into the mainstream. We seem to cheer and revere risks that others take but are only interested in "outsourcing" risks for ourselves. And, because society is so interested in avoiding death we have too little understanding of how to deal with death. More importantly, we don't really know how to deal with life in a rational and mature manner.

    Too many people lack the critical thinking skills and this forces politicians to think on our behalf. Develop a vaccine rapidly because the pandemic looks bad; now that we have a vaccine, question it's value based on small sample of cases out of a million doses; meanwhile the death rate and case rates are plummeting presumably because said vaccine has made a difference.

    Death sucks, but it's inevitable, after all: life is the leading cause of death. Enjoy life while you can, make the most of what you can. Life has risks - think critically about what matters and be sure to spend some time each day enjoying those things.

    • Re:Nobody wants to stick their neck out (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:50AM (#61167888) Homepage

      "the likelihood of death is greater without the vaccine than it is with the vaccine"

      There was some reporting last night on PBS (PBS Newshour?). They interviewed someone who said that the incidence of blood clots should actually be *higher* than what was reported due to the number of people who had been vaccinated so far.

      And if there had only been 35 incidents, for the number of people vaccinated so far that it actually meant that the incidence of blood clots was reduced by taking the vaccine. I think she said/suggested she would've expected 10x that number.

      But she also said that not all data is public, so maybe there's something else that the countries were making their decisions on that she wasn't privy to.

      I don't know how she normalized the data (you wouldn't want to use the annual rate if all of the clotting was within a week of the shot), nor if they compared it to the rate at which people who got COVID experienced blood clots, as there were reports that it was one of the complications [harvard.edu].

    • Re:Nobody wants to stick their neck out (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @11:05AM (#61168126)

      Too many people lack the critical thinking skills and this forces politicians to think on our behalf.

      Might be more accurate to say "and this forces politicians to decide for us." No, there's not all that much evidence that the politicians think "on our behalf". They think on "their behalf". And their thoughts are usually some variant of "I wanna be elected!"

      No, in general, politicians do not have your best interests at heart, except insofar as "your best interests" coincides with "I wanna be (re)elected".

      • Too many people lack the critical thinking skills and this forces politicians to think on our behalf.

        Might be more accurate to say "and this forces politicians to decide for us." No, there's not all that much evidence that the politicians think "on our behalf". They think on "their behalf". And their thoughts are usually some variant of "I wanna be elected!"

        No, in general, politicians do not have your best interests at heart, except insofar as "your best interests" coincides with "I wanna be (re)elected".

        Fair enough.
        Given too many people lack critical thinking skills, they vote because of what our politicians say, instead of what they actually do.

  • Germany..... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Puls4r ( 724907 )
    Germany was the first company to pull the vaccine. They did so in spite of the data. So if the data wasn't the driver, then what was? As yourself, where was the Astra designed and made, and are there any German competitors that might benefit from damaging the reputation of the Astra Zenaca vaccine.

    I hate to suggest it, but lacking statistical evidence one must search for other reasons the vaccine was pulled. I have little doubt that some lobbying took place behind the scenes with some 'data' presente

    • Britain pissing off Germany with Brexit didn't help either, I'd imagine.

      This could be.

      It could also be a case of liability: no-one wants to forge ahead when there was a death that could-maybe-possibly be tied to something someone within AZ maybe-possibly-could-have-known somewhere along the way.

      The death rate by vaccine is at least a couple orders of magnitude lower than the death rate without. It's as though no-one seems to care about the lives saved when there is a single death caused by the same solution. It's not rational...

    • but lacking statistical evidence one must search for other reasons the vaccine was pulled.

      That's a lot of words for "here's my conspiracy theory bullshit". Lacking evidence, one doesn't have a conclusion. Inconclusive is still a valid state to be in until more evidence is gathered. I haven't the slightest clue as to why people can't just fucking accept "we don't have enough information at this time" as a completely valid answer so long as more information is being gathered. Why people just have to start making up bullshit to fill in the missing blanks is something I just have never seen as s

      • Forming a hypothesis without having much data is part of this thing called "science". Then the hypothesis can be tested as data is collected.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Puls4r ( 724907 )
        Incorrect. We have enough information to understand that this vaccine was NOT pulled because of the data. Numerous organizations agree. That means there was some motivation for the politicians behind this move to do it. They do nothing for fun, or 'just because'.

        The most likely explanation, when all else is ruled out, is usually the truth. The most likely explanation is that someone applied some pressure to the politicians, or the politicians were trying to curry favor with someone. Since it's unli

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Oh cut the bullshit your hypothesis isnt rational. The far simpler and therefore more likely explanation is there is some data we have; maybe which has not been made public yet in case it proves incorrect.

          If it was pulled for some other reason than real-science-based-concern a not insignificant number of people will be sicked with covid who might have avoided it and be maimed or killed as a result. - The politics of that would be career ending. Look at Andrew Cuomo, right now prominent Democrats are fanning

          • Oh cut the bullshit your hypothesis isnt rational. The far simpler and therefore more likely explanation is there is some data we have; maybe which has not been made public yet in case it proves incorrect.

            If it was pulled for some other reason than real-science-based-concern a not insignificant number of people will be sicked with covid who might have avoided it and be maimed or killed as a result. - The politics of that would be career ending.

            There are no rational options remaining.

            What is in the public domain is pure nonsense.

            If they know something not in the public domain and are conspiring to keep it from the public that is just as bad and just as unlikely as the alternatives. A whole lot of people are going to be pissed and lose confidence when they find out.

            Macron's straight up lies about AZ literally a few hours before EU announced approval is more evidence of a political conspiracy than any public domain evidence supporting delaying AZ r

        • The most likely explanation, when all else is ruled out, is usually the truth.

          ‘When all else is ruled out’ is a bit wider than invalidating ONE possible reason.

          This isn't pseudo-science. It's logic and deduction.

          This certainly isn’t logic and deduction. Maybe on a TV show, but not in the real world.

    • Germany was the first company to pull the vaccine. They did so in spite of the data. So if the data wasn't the driver, then what was?

      Public opinion. The politicians have to protect their phoney bologna... or is that phona baloney? Anyway, their jobs. So if lots of people think there's a problem with the vaccine, they have to look like they're taking their concerns seriously. Once they make a small hullabaloo about how much they care they'll start distribution again.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Klivian ( 850755 )

      Germany was the first company to pull the vaccine. They did so in spite of the data.

      Since this is not true, the rest of your comment is nonsensical speculating based on false data.

      The first contry to temporarily stop using the AstraZenaca vaccine was Denmark, then Norway and Iceland. On sunday Netherlands and Ireland decided the same. Followed later by Spain, Italy, France and Germany on monday.

    • Re:Germany..... (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:18AM (#61167966) Homepage Journal

      That's not correct. Austria was the first, followed by Ireland.

  • The easiest target (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Calinous ( 985536 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:27AM (#61167820)

    It might be some kind of disinformation campaign based on the impression seeded into the populace with previous disinformation campaigns:
    "COVID-19 sounds harmless enough/is a hoax, but _deep vein trombosis_ and _pulmonary embolisms_ will kill you"
    As for Romania, only two affected lots/batches were quarantined (one after 61,000 or so inoculations out of 100,300 of doses in one lot/batch).

    There were prior reports of other issues - uncontrollable shivering lasting from minutes to half a day or so, light to severe allergic reactions, ... None of them had a horrible enough name, able to suggest impending doom.
    (all this campaign is addressed to the people whose medical education is limited to hearsay - i.e. my grandmother/... died of a blood clot).

    Also, countries that suspended Astra Zeneca vaccines are preparing for elections.
    And Astra Zeneca is the easiest target, after failing to meet promised delivery rates.

  • The Political Answer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by totallyarb ( 889799 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @09:46AM (#61167874)

    Not to be a cynic, but it may help to consider the following facts:

    • The UK certified use of the AZ Vaccine a full month before the European Union did.
    • The UK has now vaccinated 39% of its population (mostly using the AZ vaccine), whereas the EU average is just 11.8%

    I don't think it's a huge reach to say that EU officials have an incentive to "prove" that the AZ vaccine isn't actually safe, and therefore that its delay (and the resulting deaths) are therefore not their fault; they were just exercising due caution.

    This is not to say that they're wrong, necessarily, just that they have good reason to want to believe that there's a problem with AZ.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Jamu ( 852752 )
      The UK has vaccinated 1% of its population, and given the first dose to 39%.

      • Re:The Political Answer (Score:4, Informative)

        by oobayly ( 1056050 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:35AM (#61168028)

        Admittedly, it's more like 2.4% of the population, but as you say, nowhere close to the 40% that people like to bandy about. What's interesting is the vaccine snobbery coming out. People are apparently saying they only want the vaccine.

        One upshot of the ridiculous vaccine jingoisim is that two colleagues who were vocally opposed to having a Covid vaccine (not vaccines in general) both have had their first dose. The moment the UK was ahead of the EU in vaccinations meant that vaccinating the population was a good thing.

        Source: https://www.euronews.com/2021/... [euronews.com]

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by makomk ( 752139 )

        The trouble with that reasoning is that, at least in the short term, most of the benefits of these vaccinations come from the first dose. The second dose seems to provide a slight boost to effectiveness and probably improves long-term immunity, but based on what we currently know getting the first vaccine dose to as many people as possible is the number one priority. So the only reason to only count people who've been given both doses is for political reasons, to justify bad strategic decisions by certain c

    • "I don't think it's a huge reach to say that EU officials have an incentive to "prove" that the AZ vaccine isn't actually safe"

      What is that incentive? What do they gain?

  • A few additional details seems to be prudent. (Score:5, Informative)

    by arcade ( 16638 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:02AM (#61167914) Homepage

    First of all, I'm eagerly awaiting vaccination, and would probably accept the AZ vaccine if offered to me.

    However, comments here seem to downplay and be misinformed about what's going on. First you have the idea that this is an EU thing. Norway, who provided quite a bit of data on this is not even an EU member, but a member of the EEA.

    Second, the interesting thing is that most of the cases is deep vein thrombosis in combination with low blood platelet counts. According to the experts at Rikshospitalet in Oslo, this is so rare that several of the blood clot experts there have never even seen the combination before. Now they've seen it 4+ times in short order, all in people who has received the AZ vaccine during the last 14 days.

    This seems to be a common pattern among the patients. Low platelet count + sudden blood clots, right after the vaccine. From the information available, there doesn't seem to be a history of health problems neither - at least in Norway - the AZ vaccine was mostly given to healthcare professionals here.

  • It's also disinformation and bad publicity... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by denzacar ( 181829 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:12AM (#61167940) Journal

    On one hand, there's that issue where Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was supposed to be public domain - but then Bill Gates' foundation urged them NOT to do that. [khn.org]
    Yeah, that's not a good look...

    THEN... on top of that... Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been heavily targeted by Russian propaganda.
    There were at least two discussions on that topic here on slashdot in the past months.

    One back in October, when it became obvious that Russians were doing it, [slashdot.org] and another in February, when it became obvious that Russian disinformation operation continued on, is in fact much wider and at the same time promotes Russian vaccine. [slashdot.org]

    Which is in fact the one everyone should be vary of.
    And I'm not even talking about how Russia pretended they have no Covid-19 cases, only extremely high numbers of pneumonia.
    Or how it was rushed through the trials just so it could be "first ever Covid-19 vaccine", [cnbc.com] even naming it Sputnik V because once upon a time Soviets managed to catapult a radio into orbit.

    There are potential issues with all vaccines based on adenoviral vectors. [wikipedia.org]
    Mainly that Ad5-based vaccine "could similarly increase the risk of HIV-1 acquisition among men who receive the vaccine" - and that "the human body develops immunity to the vector itself, making subsequent booster shots difficult or impossible."
    And while some vaccines are Ad5-based and others are Ad26-based (Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine uses replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector (ChAdOx1))... Sputnik-V uses BOTH Ad26 and Ad5 vectors.
    I.e. Not only does it burn out not one but two future vaccines - it also (possibly) boosts your chances of getting AIDS.

    Hey... You remember that article in The Lancet [thelancet.com] about the efficiency of Sputnik-V?
    Well I do,* [slashdot.org] and it's a-ma-zing!
    Primarily cause it was NOT from some third-party impartial research source - it was written and paid for by Putin's cronies.

    Funding
    Moscow City Health Department, Russian Direct Investment Fund, Sberbank, and RUSAL.

    Head of the RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev, is LITERALLY what that Slashdot story back when was about - dude's been pushing propaganda which claims that Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine turns people into monkeys. [thetimes.co.uk]
    He is also in a close personal relationship to Putin, his wife being a pal and employee of Putin's daughter. [wikipedia.org]

    Sberbank, Russian bank still under US sanctions (among other sanctions [wikipedia.org]) was until 2016 under leadership of Putin's close FSB pal, Sergei Gorkov. [wikipedia.org]
    Since he moved to even greener pastures, after among other things funding Dumpeacho's Pageant in Moscow, bank was taken over by another one of Putin's cut-outs between him and Dumpeacho, Herman Gref. [fortune.com]

    RUSAL... well...

  • Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

    Hopefully decision makers in all of these countries are held accountable for their (lack of) judgement.

  • Sadly, irrational like nuke power fear (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:38AM (#61168034) Journal
    Europe has become the center of the great far left fear of anything/everything.
    The anti-direct genetic manipulation, or pushing organic, hails from europe.
    The push to stop agw (awesome), is slowed down by ending the irrational fears over in germany. Oddly, they have the same issue as California: mass usage of just wind/solar means depending on neighbors that are running nukes and fossil fuel power plants.
    Now, this fear with Az, though bioNtech has had multiple ppl die and interesting complications, after an injection. Of course, it, like the clots, is far less statistically, than the population.

    Tomorrow, I finally get my vaccine (over 60 and teaching ). I purposely picked 2 shots due to effectiveness of maderna and bioNtech. however, I would have no issues with j&J or AZ.

  • EU cannot allow Brexit to be seen as a success (Score:3)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @10:49AM (#61168072)
    UK vaccination efforts are ahead of EU partially because they have freedom to make their own decision independently from EU block. In this case, UK managed to develop, approve and manufacture vaccine ahead of EU. Hence, lacking any kind of statistical evidence, EU motivation is to diminish UK success by creating FUD narrative.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dhaen ( 892570 )
      Brexit can't be seen as a success by any stretch of the imagination but I think you are right about the EU wanting to rub salt in the wound. It was, after all 2 EU states, Germany and France who first voiced misgivings about the AZ vaccine. Anyway I'm glad I had the AZ vaccine. I had zero side effects, unlike my wife who had the Pfizer, had an elevated temperature, and could hardly use her arm for days.

  • I have no idea what is going on, but the EU are also playing silly buggers with contracts: "European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has threatened to block vaccine exports to the UK and other countries with markedly higher rollouts of coronavirus jabs."

    https://news.sky.com/story/cov... [sky.com]

    This is almost certainly just the senior EU leaders thinking they need to do something/anything, rather than a cunning plan, as their whole decision making process around vaccines seems to be a bit nuts, which has a

  • Seriously, blood clots are a medical condition that already affect a certain number of people.

    Based on reports I was hearing about this on the news last night, 17 million people have been vaccinated and only 37 incidents of blood clots have been identified.

    I am not suggesting that blood clots not serious medical concern, but 37 incidents out of a population of 17 million is actually statistically lower than the incidents of blood clots in the general population *WITHOUT* the vaccine.

    If people start r

  • Why don't they allow volunteers to take existing vaccines? The risk of blood-clots is small if there is any at all.

  • Brussels treasures the precautionary principle, which is that oif there is any possibility, raised by the fringiest wackjob, that an innovation can cause harm to someone, then Europe shall not have that innovation. It's why the EU can't have up-to-date food technology, and why only one EU country can generate its own energy.

    Assume for the sake of argument that every one of the observed blood clots is a side effect of the AZ vaccine. Is letting thousands of additional people die of Covid and keeping whole ec

  • We don't understand risk anymore (Score:5, Informative)

    by superdave80 ( 1226592 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @12:03PM (#61168352)

    AstraZeneca has said that they're aware of 15 events of deep vein thrombosis and 22 events pulmonary embolisms, but that's in 17 million people who have had at least one shot

    Even if those 39 people DIED from the shot, it was still better to vaccinate the 17 million, because COVID-19 was going to kill hundreds or thousands of those 17mil people. Even suspending use of this vaccine is going to cause far more harm than good, and that's not even a debate. We don't understand how to balance risk factors in this world anymore.

    Another example was my stupid, stupid home state of California suspending use of a large (330k) batch of vaccine because six...SIX... people had (gasp) an allergic reaction. At a time when hundreds of people a day were dying from COVID-19.

  • We've been seeing cases falling here in the US ever since a peak on the first week of January... But many European countries are definitely seeing another wave of infections, and the EU case numbers as a whole are going in the opposite direction to the US ones.

    There's a reason for this. The US never totally shut down. The pandemic was never fully contained or managed, it was just kept to a low simmer so that hospitals were not overloaded. When most everything (except in the largest of cities) opened back up in the fall, cases increased significantly over winter. Study after study has shown that those most affected by COVID are specific demographics*, and essentially it has gone through a large enough percentage of those people in the US that cases are declinin

  • It's not that simple (Score:4, Informative)

    by Knutsi ( 959723 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @01:10PM (#61168544)

    Here in Norway the vaccinated patients in question (two of whom died) may not be many, but they have very special lab results. They show thrombocyotopenia and central cerebral venous thrombosis (low blood platelets + big cloth in the vessels draining the brain). This is a rare bird. It's one thing to have more birds than usual at your bird feeder one morning, but if you one day have three parrots there, something is going on. This very important detail seems to be list in the media.

    It makes perfects sense to pause and review as the blood cloth is question is not typical, and it's also been fatal. There is a individual emotional vs. public health perspective battle coming up over this vaccine for sure.

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