Fact check on side effects
Ministry deletes wrong tweet about corona vaccination
07/22/2022, 8:14 p.m
The alleged number of serious side effects of the corona vaccinations have been a bone of contention in politics and society for months. There has been data from the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) since the beginning of the vaccination campaign. Recently, however, even the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) spread misleading information – and had to backtrack.
Claim: “One in 5,000 people is affected by a serious side effect after a COVID-19 vaccination,” wrote the BMG on July 20, 2022 in a tweet that has since been deleted, but is in the web archive can be viewed.
Valuation: Not correct.
Facts: The Ministry of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD made two mistakes in the original tweet, which caused a lot of reactions on social media: It does not make it clear that it is all about suspicious activity reports. Patients are also confused with the number of vaccinations.
In its latest safety report (PDF) to: In the entire period between the start of the vaccination campaign on December 27, 2020 and March 31, 2022, the reporting rate for serious reactions for all corona vaccines combined was 0.2 reports per 1000 vaccine doses. Since many people in Germany have been vaccinated against the corona virus several times, the number cannot be converted one-to-one to patients, as the BMG did.
According to the PEI, extrapolated, an average of 5000 vaccinations was reported once that a serious side effect could have occurred. The emphasis here is on: possibly. Because it is only a suspicion. According to the institute, the reactions recorded are “often in a temporal, but not necessarily a causal connection with a vaccination”. Not every is actually a side effect.
New tweet is worded correctly
The PEI compares the suspicious activity reports with the statistical expectations of people who have not been vaccinated. If there is a significantly higher rate for a symptom, the institute assumes a risk signal. For example, the number of reports of sinus or cerebral vein thrombosis following vaccination with the Astrazeneca vaccine was higher than expected.
For months, opponents of vaccination have been trying to deliberately misinterpret the official figures from the PEI or the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is responsible at EU level, to assume that a large number of people have become seriously ill or died after a Covid vaccination. But even the EMA only gives suspected reports, no proven side effects. According to the PEI, out of more than 178 million doses administered, by the end of March there were 116 reported deaths with a probable or possible causal link to vaccination.
According to the Medicines Act, “serious side effects” are side effects that are fatal or life-threatening, require inpatient treatment or lead to permanent disabilities. In contrast to other vaccines, the PEI also defines all adverse reactions of particular interest after corona vaccinations as “serious”.
In the meantime, the BMG has deleted the misleading tweet and correctly formulated it in a new post: “The reporting rate to @PEI_Germany for serious reactions is 0.2 suspected reports per 1000 vaccine doses.”