Public health officials have addressed potential hazards for those who have taken the COVID-19 vaccine.
The CDC released the results of an investigation into safety concerns for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine aged 65 and up on January 13.
Such investigations are prompted when a safety signal is detected by a surveillance system and meets the statistical criteria to warrant further assessment to determine whether it is due to vaccination, as explained by the CDC.
Of particular concern in this case was an increased risk of ischemic stroke in the 21 days immediately following vaccination compared to the 21 days following that (days 22-44 after vaccination).
An ischemic stroke strikes when a blood vessel to the brain is blocked. This type of stroke accounts for about 87% of all cases.
This is not the first time a health risk has been tied to COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA limited the use of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines to adults in 2021 due to the vaccine’s association with a rare blood clot disorder, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The FDA also temporarily called for an immediate halt to the J&J vaccine after six women had developed the blood clot disorder within two weeks of receiving the vaccine.
Experts also questioned the potential link between the COVID vaccine and heart attack deaths amid a surge in adverse cardiac events in 2021.
Despite the safety signal given off by the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), the investigation showed that it might be related to “other confounding factors.”
The CDC claimed the studies conducted on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines using the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services database revealed no increased risk of ischemic stroke.
No increased risk was found based on a preliminary study of stats from the Veterans Affairs database, either.
Studies conducted with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), Pfizer-BioNTech’s global safety database, and reports from other nations have also not observed any increased risk for ischemic stroke with updated (bivalent) vaccines.
The bivalent version of the vaccines contains two mRNA components, one of which is meant to target the omicron variant specifically.
Despite having made the investigation and the safety signal leading up to it public, the CDC said that there is no need for any changes in current vaccination practice.