NEW: AstraZeneca safety message messy as EU Regulators appear to contradict

April 7, 2021 – Experts double down that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine far outweigh the side effects, but try telling that to people who are skeptical about Covid-19 vaccines.

Once again, the safety of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine is capturing headlines following a string of contradictory statements reported in media by European Union regulators. 

It leaves a wondering public to question what is true; that AstraZeneca has been identified as the cause of blood clots in some people who have taken the vaccine or that an investigation remains ongoing with no conclusion being drawn. 

Blot clots have been found in a minute percentage of those who have taken the vaccine, say experts who are now trying to turn this public relations nightmare around.

“The Committee was of the opinion that the vaccine’s proven efficacy in preventing hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 outweighs the extremely small likelihood of developing [these rare conditions],” PRAC said in a statement. “However, in the light of its findings, patients should be aware of the remote possibility of such syndromes, and if symptoms suggestive of clotting problems occur patients should seek immediate medical attention and inform healthcare professionals of their recent vaccination,” said Dr. Sabine Straus, Chair of the PRAC Committee.

The committee is the PRAC or Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee of the EMA which is aiming to diffuse the potential fall-out of a negative report related to a vaccine which has been put into some 60 million people world-wide.

Statements have tried to reign in fears and focus on their medical facts, that AstraZeneca is safe.

The concern surrounding blood clots was significant enough to bring a halt to inoculations in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain; all European Union countries.

While it seems there can no longer be a debate about the blood coagulation being linked to taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, Dr. Sinead Straus, who led the PRAC review said this side effect never materialized during the clinical trials and isolating the root cause needs more investigation.

“”The evidence we have is at the moment not sufficient to conclude with certainty whether these adverse events are indeed caused by the vaccine or not,” Straus said.

Caribbean region countries including Jamaica, The Bahamas, Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize and the Turks and Caicos Islands are all in possession of the Oxford AstraZeneca brand of the coronavirus vaccine.