In an interesting turn of events the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Jan. 13, late Friday afternoon, that it is looking into a link between the COVID-19 vaccination and ischemic strokes in the older adult population, those over the age of 65. This report comes as President Biden has been encouraging this age group to get vaccinated as they are at a high-risk of developing serious complications from COVID, higher likelihood of hospitalization and death. In fact over the last week 70% of hospitalizations with confirmed COVID have been over the age of 60.
We commonly think of the Vaccine Adverse Event Report System (VAERS), but as per the CDC this website did not initiate the red flag. There are two other systems that are also used to track vaccination safety, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) project Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD). VSD is reporting the concern.
The CDC is stating that there is no true clinical risk, but wanted the information released to the public. If you pay attention to these organizations, much like corporations reporting bad news that will negatively impact their stock prices, they like to report on a Friday afternoon to minimize the reporting in the current news cycle.
The concern is that for 21 days following the administration of the vaccine the older adult is at a higher risk of having an ischemic stroke. As we know, an ischemic stroke occurs when an embolus or atheroma block a blood vessel and obstruct blood flow to a given area. Pfizer and Biotech did not disclose how many cases of stroke have been reported but did make sure to state that “there is no evidence to conclude that ischemic stroke is associated with the use of the companies’ COVID-19 vaccines.”
The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers stated that both the CDC and the FDA would be called to testify on the matter.
Centers for Disease Control. (2022, Dec. 1). Vaccine Reporting Systems. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/reporting-systems.html#:~:text=There%20are%20two%20ways%20to,%2D800%2D822%2D7967.
Leonard, B. & Gardner, L. (2023, Jan. 13). CDC, FDA see possible link between Pfizer bivalent shot strokes. Politico. Retrieved from https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/13/cdc-fda-pfizer-bivalent-vaccine-possible-strokes-00077933.
Reuters. (2023, Jan. 14). U.S. FDA, CDC see early signal of possible Pfizer bivalent COVID shot link to stroke. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-says-pfizers-bivalent-covid-shot-may-be-linked-stroke-older-adults-2023-01-13/.
