AstraZeneca’s Withdrawal of their Covid Vaccine Isn’t A “Gotcha” Moment For Anti-Vaxxers

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca withdrew their Covid-19 vaccination after admitting it can cause rare blood clots.  

But is this the slam dunk anti-vaxxers were hoping for? Maybe not so much, according to Professor Margie Danchin from The Royal Children’s Hospital.

On The Briefing today, Professor Margie Danchin, a paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital, joined Sacha Barbour Gatt to explain the benefits and the side effects of vaccines.

Professor Danchin says the rare side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine were well not a secret.

“We knew about that through the COVID rollout. It was well documented. The surveillance for adverse events picked this up in Australia and globally. It’s very rare. It occurs probably somewhere between two to four per 100,000.”

“AstraZeneca has withdrawn that vaccine mainly because there are different circulating COVID strains in the community. And that vaccine, which has the original kind of Wuhan strain, would not be effective anymore.”

She says while the invention of the Covid vaccines was developed incredibly quickly, thanks to massive global investment and collaboration, it wasn’t at the expense of vaccine safety.

“I think we’re at an exciting time. I think we’ve got a lot of work to do. And I think we as health care professionals need to just get better at communicating that risk and benefit of vaccines to people, inviting questions, inviting discussion and conversation, and really continuing to build confidence in vaccines.

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