The preliminary report in U.S. trials show the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19 to be effective. In Europe, some countries have put using it on pause because of blood clot issues. The issue has raised some concerns. Doctor Barbara Pahud, Research Director of Pediatrics Infectious Diseases at Children’s Mercy and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the KU School of Medicine, says she believes the vaccine is safe.
"When people get vaccinated, life continues to happen. So you still have people that are going to develop cancer, that get into car accidents, that develop blood clots," said Dr. Pahud. "So, if the background rate of that adverse event you are worried about is the same as what you might have expected... its nothing to be concerned about. And that's what we have been noticing with these blood clot events. Its not that people that were vaccinated are having higher rates of blood clots, they are just finding them in people that got the vaccine. People that are not vaccinated are getting them at the same rate."
According to federal officials, an independent panel of medical experts said the encouraging results announced on Monday might have relied on outdated information. In a statement Tuesday, the company promised to “share our primary analysis with the most up-to-date efficacy data.”