{"id":51886,"date":"2021-02-10T07:07:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T11:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=51886"},"modified":"2021-02-10T07:12:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T11:12:16","slug":"doctors-link-pfizer-moderna-vaccines-to-life-threatening-blood-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=51886","title":{"rendered":"Doctors Link Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines to Life-Threatening Blood Disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A second New York Times article quotes doctors who say the mRNA technology used in COVID vaccines may cause immune thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder that last month led to the death of a Florida doctor after his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.<\/em><\/h3>\n
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By Children’s Health Defense Team<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For the second time in under a month, The New York Times has published\u00a0an article<\/a>\u00a0about people who developed a rare autoimmune disease after receiving\u00a0COVID vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s article featured two women, both of whom were described as healthy before they received the\u00a0Moderna<\/a>\u00a0vaccine. The women, ages 72 and 48, are now being treated for\u00a0immune thrombocytopenia (ITP)<\/a>, a condition that develops when the immune system attacks platelets (blood component essential for clotting) or the cells that create them, according to the Times.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 13, the\u00a0Times reported<\/a>\u00a0on the death of\u00a0Dr. Gregory Michael<\/a>, a Florida doctor who died 15 days after getting the\u00a0Pfizer<\/a>\u00a0vaccine. Michael, who was 56 and described as \u201cperfectly healthy\u201d by his wife, developed ITP three days after being vaccinated. He died of a brain hemorrhage on Jan. 3. As\u00a0The Defender reported<\/a>\u00a0on Jan. 13, Dr. Jerry L. Spivak, an expert on blood disorders at Johns Hopkins University, said it was a \u201cmedical certainty\u201d the Pfizer vaccine led to Michael\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

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Spivak, who was interviewed for\u00a0Monday\u2019s article<\/a>\u00a0in the Times, reiterated the link between the vaccine and ITP. Another doctor, Dr. James Bussel, a hematologist and professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medicine who has written more than 300 scientific articles on the platelet disorder, also said he thinks there is a \u201cpossible\u201d association between the vaccines and ITP.<\/p>\n

Bussel told the Times:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m assuming there\u2019s something that made the people who developed thrombocytopenia susceptible, given what a tiny percentage of recipients they are. Having it happen after a vaccine is well-known and has been seen with many other vaccines. Why it happens, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bussel and a colleague, Dr. Eun-Ju Lee, have identified 15 cases of ITP in COVID vaccine recipients by searching the government\u2019s database \u2014 the\u00a0Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System<\/a>\u00a0(VAERS) \u2014 or by consulting with other physicians treating patients, and have submitted an article about their findings to a medical journal, according to the Times.<\/p>\n

In a statement provided to the Times, Pfizer said it was aware of ITP cases in vaccine recipients and that the company is \u201ccollecting relevant information\u201d to share with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

The vaccine maker added, however that \u201cat this time, we have not been able to establish a causal association with our vaccine.\u201d Moderna also provided a statement, but didn\u2019t address cases of ITP, only saying that it \u201ccontinuously monitors the safety of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine using all sources of data\u201d and routinely shares safety information with regulators.<\/p>\n

Directly following Michael\u2019s death,\u00a0Pfizer said<\/a>\u00a0there was \u201cno indication \u2014 either from large\u00a0clinical trials<\/a>\u00a0or among people who have received the vaccine since the government authorized its use last month \u2014 that it could be connected to thrombocytopenia.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, as\u00a0Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN<\/a>, president emerita and director of\u00a0Children\u2019s Health Defense<\/a>\u00a0said at the time, Pfizer\u2019s statement didn\u2019t square with the facts \u2014 because ITP is a\u00a0well-known adverse event<\/a>\u00a0associated with vaccinations.<\/p>\n

The vaccine most often implicated in ITP is the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, where the disease occurs in approximately\u00a01 in every 25,000 to 40,000 doses<\/a>\u00a0of the vaccine, Redwood said.<\/p>\n

ITP has also been associated with\u00a0hepatitis A and B virus (HBV<\/a>),\u00a0human papilloma virus (HPV)<\/a>,\u00a0varicella-zoster, diphteria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTap)<\/a>,\u00a0polio<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0pneumococcus vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the Times, ITP is \u201cgenerally treatable\u201d but can persist for months or become chronic and last for years. The\u00a0American Hematology Society<\/a>\u00a0advises patients who already have ITP go ahead and get vaccinated, \u201cbut after consulting with their hematologists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the two women featured in the Times yesterday are recovering. Luz Legaspi, 72, was hospitalized in New York City on Jan. 19 with a severe case of ITP, but is home now, being cared for by her daughter.<\/p>\n

A 48-year-old Texas woman who asked that the Times not use her name spent four days in the hospital, receiving platelet transfusions, immune globulins and steroids to restore her platelet count \u2014 a situation she described as \u201cterrifying.\u201d She said her doctor told her to go ahead and get the second dose of the Moderna vaccine, but she has not yet decided if she will.<\/p>\n

The Defender reached out to the Florida Department of Health for an update on the investigation into Michael\u2019s death, but did not hear back by deadline. Florida health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the death.<\/p>\n

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A second New York Times article quotes doctors who say the mRNA technology used in COVID vaccines may cause immune thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder that last month led to the death of a Florida doctor after his first dose of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}