Time for a vaccine safety update. I'm specifically looking for what's going on with adolescents who are now getting Pfizer after the EUA on May 10. Kids who got their first shots right away are just now getting their second shots, so most of the data we have at this point is from first shots.
The most recent VAERS release is from 5/28, and at that point, about 2.6 million people in the US aged 12-15 had gotten at least one shot, and about 0.1 million had gotten both shots.
When I look in VAERS for those aged 12-15 without screening for serious cases, I get pages and pages of kids who managed to get the shot before the EUA. That's something that's supposed to be reported, so it's good that they're in there, but it does clutter up the database. Screening for only reports flagged as serious, I get 20 reports, 14 in males and 6 in females, no deaths. This is actually the reverse of what we are seeing with adults, where there are more reports in females.
As expected given earlier reports out of Israel, the most common report was chest pain/myocarditis. There were five reports, all male. One was after a second dose. One got the first shot, then got covid, then developed chest pain. One had prior covid and a brother that had MISC after covid. One had prior asymptomatic covid. So only one had this problem after the first shot without having covid. It is possible that we will start seeing more of these cases after the second shot. None of the five cases appeared to cause lasting damage, although they were all admitted to the hospital. Obviously this is something that one would hope to avoid if possible, but given that myocarditis is also common with young males who get covid, I'm not sure that it can be.
Next most common are allergies. In adults, Pfizer has the highest rate of allergies, and kids in general tend to be more prone to allergies, so not surprising. There were four cases (2M; 2F). One had chest pain in addition to the allergic reaction.
Next is three cases (2F; 1M) of MISC. One was in a girl who got covid 10 days after her first shot (too soon for partial immunity) and then got MISC. The other two were in males with prior covid. This is another one that may end up increasing after second shots, given that it's a problem of excess immune reaction.
Next there were two cases (both male) of appendicitis. This was something that showed up in one of the trials, so it's worth watching your kids for abdominal pain.
All the rest were unique cases:
One pancreatitis (pre-existing T1D)
One lower leg neuropathy (pre-existing complicated medical case)
One apparent mild GBS (right side numbness lasting 24 hrs)
One fainted after getting the shot
One got shingles. I've heard adults say that they got shingles after vaccination, but I've also heard medical professionals say that shingles went up during the pandemic, even before the vaccines. So maybe a connection; maybe not.
One mood change and suicide attempt. Mood returned to baseline after seven days. I've written about this before. The immune system can influence your mood, so this is also worth keeping an eye out for.
One stroke (pre-existing hypoplastic left heart syndrome and fontan-induced liver fibrosis. The latter is a risk factor for stroke)
So given that we're looking at 2.6 million people, those numbers are not bad at all. Because covid is not as severe in kids, it makes sense to look closely at the relative risk from the vaccine vs covid. Although covid deaths are rare in kids, there have been about 300 so far, and if we generously estimate that about a quarter of US kids have gotten covid, that would be 16 deaths per million covid cases in kids. So at least given the data we have now, one shot of vaccine is much safer for kids than getting covid. I will report on this topic again once we have more data.
I also think that it's worth mentioning that although things like allergic reactions appear to be somewhat under-reported in VAERS, reports of deaths appear to be over-reported. When I looked for deaths for an older age group, I found five records for three people. Two of the three had been reported twice by different doctors.
Link to the VAERS search page if you'd like to look at it yourself: https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/index.php