Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

sciencenorway.no

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 288 posts

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#211

Post by iso1631 »

tyfon wrote: post #185
fab1an wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The clotting with AZ is very different and more serious than what the thrombosis associated with the pill - about half of those who get it die even with best medical care. It predominanctly affects folks who would have a miniscule risk of death by Covid19, so this absolutely needs to be investigated.

I saw the description by the doctor who treated the person who died here in Norway. He called it a "catastrophe in the brain" [1] and the life just could not be saved. It sounds really nasty. Blood clots + low blood plate count at the same time. [1] https://www.nrk.no/norge/innlagt-helsearbeider-dode-_-unders...

A few weeks after my dad had a covid vaccine he had several seizures, which have continued to happen.

On top of that, nearly 3 weeks into hospital and he caught covid. At least the vaccine worked and that's mostly sorted.

MRI says he has suffered catastrophic brain damage and is about to be released for palative care for the last

Now importantly

- I don't know which vaccine he had (and I'm certainly not going to bother my mother over that at the moment)

- He's suffered from seizures for the last few years, although those normally follow infections and high temperatures

But it's disquieting

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#212

Post by y0ned4 »

nottorp wrote: post #106
SiempreViernes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure all countries that distribute it have their own independent data sets, or are you suggesting AZ runs the health care systems across Europe?

I'm pretty sure it was approved only based on testing done by AZ themselves. So there were no "independent" tests when it was approved. As I said before, that's normal procedure for any medication, so we're arguing about the definition of "independent". Btw the case in Italy was autopsied and found to not have any blood clots. Edit: found a link in english for Italy https://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2021/…

I'm from Italy, and we had similar cases too: https://mantovauno.it/cronaca/non-ce-lha-fatta-il-carabinier...

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#213

Post by [deleted] »

Someone wrote: post #180

It’s said in many texts about this (possible) problem, but I don’t understand how serious blood clots and low levels of blood platelets can go together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platelet : “Platelets […] are a component of blood whose function […] is to react to bleeding from blood vessel injury by clumping, thereby initiating a blood clot.” So, I would expect low platelet counts to be associated with excessive…

[deleted]

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#214

Post by julianlam »

iso1631 wrote: post #211
tyfon wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the description by the doctor who treated the person who died here in Norway. He called it a "catastrophe in the brain" [1] and the life just could not be saved. It sounds really nasty. Blood clots + low blood plate count at the same time. [1] https://www.nrk.no/norge/innlagt-helsearbeider-dode-_-unders...

A few weeks after my dad had a covid vaccine he had several seizures, which have continued to happen. On top of that, nearly 3 weeks into hospital and he caught covid. At least the vaccine worked and that's mostly sorted. MRI says he has suffered catastrophic brain damage and is about to be released for palative care for the last Now importantly - I don't know which vaccine he had (and I'm certainly not going to both…

I'm sorry to hear about your father's suffering. However I feel it's important for you to sound an alarm to the relevant doctors and/or public health units if you feel there's a link between his seizures and the vaccine.

Whether or not it was the AZ vaccine or not..

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#215

Post by burpee »

Someone wrote: post #180

It’s said in many texts about this (possible) problem, but I don’t understand how serious blood clots and low levels of blood platelets can go together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platelet : “Platelets […] are a component of blood whose function […] is to react to bleeding from blood vessel injury by clumping, thereby initiating a blood clot.” So, I would expect low platelet counts to be associated with excessive…

I've had the exact some happen (It's rare, but here I am), including a transient ischemic stroke while having virtually no platelets.

There is no real understanding for the cause of immune thrombocytopenia in the first place, but the combination of low platelets and clotting happens in quite a few cases.

Platelets take on a lot of roles beyond clotting (for example they transport serotonin, which itself has been linked to clotting) and clotting itself is about more than just platelet counts (which would need a few pages to even start to explain).

Once the immune system targets platelets though, unexpected things tend to happen beyond just uncontrolled bleeding, none of which are particularly well understood due to the low number of cases. The cause of idiopathic thrombocytopenia is most commonly attributed to an immune response, although it can have several other causes.

What I can say is that thrombocytopenia following a viral infection is more common than it appears to be following this vaccine. I believe this would be a more fair comparison than to compare it against the general population.

The percentage of people who would have this same stroke when having COVID-19 would in all probability be much much higher.

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#216

Post by Pyramus »

The German institute for vaccines (Paul-Ehrlich-Institute), responsible for the German temporary suspension, has an excellent FAQ on the topic (also posted by user Dragonfly) [1]:

* Germany has seen 7 events (3 deaths) per 1.6M doses, age 20-50, 6 female

* Caused by severe cerebral venous thrombosis with platelet deficiency

* Analysis showed heightened levels relative to background

* Much more severe than side effect of contraceptive pills, and yet unknown

In terms of frequency of events Germany seems to be in between UK/US and Norway.

[1] https://www.pei.de/EN/newsroom/hp-news/2021/210315-pei-infor...

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#217

Post by pessimizer »

dekhn wrote: post #206
kwhitefoot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to read the VG articles, they are much more thorough than the one linked on HN but they are in Norwegian. Google Translate does a fair job. https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/QmwR1V/professor-om-mi... https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/KyWoy6/jakter-astrazen... A key quote from the second of those is this: Madsen har tidligere forklart at det er to nivåer å undersøke bivirkninger på: Gruppebasert, og i…

it doesn't make sense to stop a vaccination campaign if a small number of people have side effects, assuming the vaccination utility is high.

Utility is compared against other choices of vaccine and how much more time it would take to distribute those instead, or compared against not giving it to certain groups that are susceptible to the reaction (and the time it takes to find those groups), not against doing nothing.

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#218

Post by Barrin92 »

dekhn wrote: post #148
einarfd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do remember that this expert is the person the premier Norwegian hospital picked as their spokesman for their press conference on this. So in essence what he says is the opinion of the Norwegian health care system, not just his own, about these cases. This isn't some random expert, giving an of the cuff opinion.

hes a clotting expert, not a COVID expert. So of course he sees clots everywhere. Are you sure he's the spokesman, or just making this claim as an independent researcher. There is nothing in the two articles I read saying this is an official position of the hospital.

>hes a clotting expert, not a COVID expert. So of course he sees clots everywhere

and while I'm sure that a cancer expert has a tendency to see cancer more than your average guy, I'd still rely on a cancer expert for an opinion on cancer

this is a weird take. A clotting expert is supposed to comment on clotting issues, that this is a covid vaccine isn't even really relevant.

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#219

Post by libertine »

Hopefully Alexander Ginzburg is right: “Perhaps in this case an incomplete degree of purification was used and some products that could remain in the final product could contribute to platelet aggregation in some of the patients who received the preparation,” Ginzburg was quoted as saying. [1]

It would mean it was a production problem, not an adverse reaction to a vaccine well manufactured. AZ has been under pressure to deliver, but if this is the case would mean an extremely bad QA process, which for vaccines is probably highly unlikely.

[1]https://www.world-today-news.com/the-creator-of-sputnik-v-po...

Re: Norwegian experts say blood clots were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

#220

Post by libertine »

vibrio wrote: post #4

Based on all the information provided in this article, this article is premature to publish. The headline is accurate, as 'experts say', but lack of any independent support of data supporting the claim, makes this dubious (at best) to publish at this point.

I'd say the timing was just right!

A lot of media was already trying to frame all of this into a political problem, fueling conspiracy theories, and trying to destroy the credibility of European independent regulators.

It's disgusting what happened in the past few days, casting doubt over regulators, doctors and scientists that were dealing directly with these cases and had hands-on data, thankfully there's transparency in these countries, and regulators are doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Post reply on HN