(TJVNEWS)At least 36 people have developed a rare, life-threatening blood disorder, called thrombocytopenia, after receiving either of the two COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the US.
One of them, Miami obstetrician Dr Gregory Michael, died after thrombocytopenia caused his platelets to drop to virtually zero. He was just 56 and died of a brain hemorrhage just 16 days after receiving Pfizer‘s shot. , Daily Mail reported
36 similar cases had been reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, VAERS, by the end of January. The cases involved either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, the only two authorized so far for emergency use in the United States, the NY Times reported.
Thrombocytopenia is basically a lack of platelets, a blood component essential for clotting.
Daily Mail reported
Thrombocytopenia has been seen after other vaccines as well, and experts suspect that the shot does act as a trigger in some way – they just don’t know why yet.
But so far, the platelet-suppressing condition appears exceedingly rare – affecting just 36 people out of 43 million doses administered in the US – and scientists theorize that only a small fraction of the population may have some predisposition that could lead vaccines to trigger the blood disorder.
In a statement, Pfizer said: “We take reports of adverse events very seriously,” and added that it was aware of thrombocytopenia cases in vaccine recipients.
NY Times noted :
Moderna also provided a statement, which did not address the question of the platelet disorder, but said the company “continuously monitors the safety of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine using all sources of data” and routinely shares safety information with regulators.
