DISINFO: Oxford study: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause 30 times more cases of blood clots than AstraZeneca’s
SUMMARY
Amid fears of blood clots as a possible secondary effect of vaccination against the coronavirus, scientists of the Oxford University tried to calculate which are the real risks of developing a thrombosis due to the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines from available data. Scientists concluded that the chances of suffering a cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) are 8 times higher after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine and 10 times higher for those vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna. Besides, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause 30 times more cases of portal vein thrombosis (PVT) than AstraZeneca’s.
The developers of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V asked health regulators all over the world to thoroughly examine the Oxford study on the correlation of rare cases of blood coagulation and the different types of vaccines against Covid-19, which shows that the risk of PVT seems to be 30 times higher with the mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) than with AstraZeneca’s, and that the risk of CVT, one of the reasons why many regulators recommended to suspend the use of vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, seem to be very similar for the AstraZeneca vaccine and for the mRNA Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
RESPONSE
By framing the Pfizer (BioNTech/Pfizer) and Moderna vaccines as riskier than AstraZeneca’s, this disinformation message wants to capitalise on the alarm created about the latter after some countries temporarily suspended its use. These disinformation articles appeared amid a wave of false affirmations made by the developers of the Sputnik V vaccine aiming to discredit competitors (see here for a detailed analysis and debunk of those false claims), part of a long-term pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign about global vaccination.
The claims are a deliberate distortion of the original study of the Oxford University quoted as the source. The study specifically focused on estimating “the absolute risk of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) and portal vein thrombosis (PVT) in the two weeks following a diagnosis of COVID-19, and to assess the relative risks (RR) compared to influenza or the administration of an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19”, given that “one key component of the risk-benefit calculation is currently unknown: the absolute risk of CVT following a diagnosis of COVID-19”. It also warned that its authors “could not make a direct comparison with rates after the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (“Oxford-AstraZeneca”) vaccine because this has not been used in the USA”.
The study concluded that the incidence of CVT after COVID-19 diagnosis was “significantly higher than the CVT incidence in a matched cohort of patients with influenza [...] and people who received an mRNA vaccine”. This means that according to this data, chances of suffering a CVT are lower after being vaccinated. Also, even hand-picked data and flawed calculations used in this disinformation piece show that AstraZeneca is 30 times more effective in preventing PVT than Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, which themselves show a rate of PVT 100 times lower than the general population infected of Covid-19. However, the information is presented as if PVT was the result of the vaccine and not the opposite, explicitly stating that “vaccines cause it”.
See other examples in our database, such as claims that the West is waging a war against Sputnik V and Russian vaccines; that Pfizer directors sold their shares alarmed over vaccine’s deaths; that 29 people died in Norway after receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine; that the Moderna vaccine shouldn’t be trusted because nothing is known about the company; that the US vaccine genetically modifies humans; that the WHO and Microsoft sabotaged the Russian vaccine; or that the West criticises the Sputnik V because it can’t accept Russia’s primacy, and because its pharmaceutical companies will lose billions of dollars.
For an overview of the pro-Kremlin disinformation regarding Covid-19 vaccines see also here.