AstraZeneca Admits COVID Vaccine Can Cause Rare Blood Clots

Doha – The British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has acknowledged for the first time in court documents that its COVID-19 vaccine can cause a rare side effect known as Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), characterized by blood clots.

This admission comes amidst a class-action lawsuit alleging that the vaccine, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford and widely used across Europe, has caused death and severe injury in dozens of cases, as reported by The Telegraph.

TTS is an extremely rare condition characterized by the formation of blood clots (thrombosis) and low platelet counts (thrombocytopenia). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adenovirus vector vaccines, such as the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, have been rarely associated with this condition.

Although COVID-19 vaccines have prevented numerous deaths, reports of these potentially serious immune-mediated events have been published in reputed journals, as stated by Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, Co-Chairman of the National IMA COVID Task Force in Kerala, according to The Economic Times.

The lawsuit against AstraZeneca, filed in the High Court, involves fifty-one cases, with victims and their families seeking damages estimated to be worth up to £100 million.

One of the claimants is Jamie Scott, a father of two, who developed a blood clot and a bleed on his brain after receiving the vaccine in April 2021, resulting in a permanent brain injury that has prevented him from working.

In a legal document submitted to the High Court in February, AstraZeneca admitted that “the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. The causal mechanism is not known.” However, in a letter of response sent to Scott’s lawyers in May 2023, the company stated that they do not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level.

Kate Scott, Jamie’s wife, has been fighting for acknowledgment and compensation for three years. She told The Telegraph, “the medical world has acknowledged for a long time that VITT was caused by the vaccine. It’s only AstraZeneca who have questioned whether Jamie’s condition was caused by the jab.”

Kate sees AstraZeneca’s admission as progress but demands an apology and fair compensation for her family and other affected families.

Sarah Moore, a partner at law firm Leigh Day, who is bringing the legal claims, criticized AstraZeneca for taking a year to formally admit that their vaccine can cause devastating blood clots, despite the fact being widely accepted by the clinical community since the end of 2021.

AstraZeneca has expressed sympathy for those who lost loved ones or reported health problems and emphasized that patient safety is their highest priority. The company pointed out that product information relating to the vaccine was updated in April 2021, with the approval of the UK regulator, to include the possibility of the vaccine being a trigger for TTS in very rare cases.

Independent studies have shown that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine was incredibly effective in tackling the pandemic, saving more than six million lives globally in the first year of the rollout. The WHO has stated that the vaccine is safe and effective for all individuals aged 18 and above, and the adverse effect that prompted the legal action is very rare.

The British government has pledged to underwrite AstraZeneca’s legal bills, and the vaccine is no longer used in the UK. The government runs its own vaccine compensation scheme, but alleged victims claim the one-off payment of £120,000 is inadequate.

Figures obtained under a Freedom of Information request show that out of 163 payouts made by the government by February this year, at least 158 went to recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

As the legal battle continues, the admission by AstraZeneca marks a significant step in the pursuit of acknowledgment and compensation for those affected by the rare side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine.