AstraZeneca and the risk of thrombosis, the hijacked precautionary principle
Audio 03:33
On Thursday March 18, 2021, the European Medicines Agency deemed the AstraZeneca vaccine "safe and effective".
© REUTERS - BENOIT TESSIER
By: Sophie Malibeaux
8 mins
France, Italy, Spain and Germany have announced the resumption of vaccination with AstraZeneca, after the European Medicines Agency deemed this vaccine "
safe and effective
".
This report was eagerly awaited, but a certain mistrust persists, and is expressed on social networks.
Publicity
Between legitimate concerns and voluntary and amplified disinformation on social networks, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between things.
More than a year after the start of the pandemic, with the arrival of new vaccines, careful observation of anything that could constitute undesirable effects is essential.
This is all the more necessary since, to be effective against the virus, vaccination coverage must be as extensive as possible.
However, in countries where the vaccine is not compulsory, only a high degree of confidence can get a large number of people to be vaccinated.
This is, it seems, what motivated the temporary suspension of vaccination with AstraZeneca, by several countries in Europe, after the report of rare cases of thrombosis, namely, the formation of blood clots in the arteries. .
However, the “
precautionary principle
” put forward by the authorities was immediately hijacked on social networks.
The "antivax" rushed into the breach to fight this vaccine, with new arguments.
The precautionary principle used by antivaxes
Without waiting to know whether or not the vaccine was responsible for the cases of thrombosis considered suspicious, some rushed to believe that it was necessarily the case.
This is to omit the fact that in the ordinary population, cases of thrombosis, more or less serious, are frequent.
Multiple risk factors
can explain the formation of clots in the blood: the contraceptive pill - the prescription of which is the subject of prior blood tests -, hormonal treatments against menopause, but also the pregnancy itself, does so. to be immobilized following an operation or quite simply during a long trip, in a person at risk, a person prone to varicose veins for example, and any other person suffering from poor blood circulation.
As underlined by professors Albert-Claude Benhamou, Ismaël Elalamy and Grigorios Gerotziafas, authors of a
column published this Wednesday, March 17, 2021 in Le Monde
, "
It appears much more frequent to have thrombosis without a vaccine than with a vaccine
".
Thrombosis is the leading cause of death in Western countries.
There is therefore no
a priori
reason
that vaccinated people do not develop this type of affection.
Especially since the populations currently vaccinated are, for the most part, people at risk, suffering from comorbidities.
Showdown between the EU and AstraZeneca
There is therefore reason to wonder about the real reasons for a temporary suspension of vaccination at a time when France and other European countries are experiencing a third wave of the epidemic.
In view of the low number of suspected cases reported and the benefit-risk ratio of this vaccine, the World Health Organization has recommended continuing the injections.
Belgium, for its part, continued vaccination, on the basis of scientific arguments.
At the end of the day, more than a problem with the vaccine itself, it is the vaccine shortage looming in Europe.
One can wonder if the States which invoked the precautionary principle did not overreact, and if there was not a political dimension in this decision of temporary suspension, while a standoff is engaged between the European Union and AstraZeneca, for non-compliance with delivery contracts.
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Covid-19: European Medicines Agency judges AstraZeneca vaccine "safe and effective"