CDC, FDA flag potential safety issues with new COVID-19 vaccine

The Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration announced this month that the new COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer could have some safety risks.

The risk is highest in people 65 years or older who receive the new Pfizer jab which is meant to target several variants of the coronavirus. The CDC released a joint statement with the FDA on January 13, saying it had identified “a safety concern for ischemic stroke in people ages 65 and older who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent.” The statement added that the CDC is investigating whether those who are over 65 who received the vaccine “were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-42 following vaccination.”

Ischemic strokes are the most common type, accounting for about 87 percent of all strokes, according to the American Stroke Association. They usually occur when a blood clot blocks a vessel to the brain. 

The CDC says its initial findings showed there is only a very minor risk of stroke from the Pfizer vaccine. “The totality of the data currently suggests that it is very unlikely that the signal in VSD represents a true clinical risk,” the agency said. The CDC still recommends everyone stay up-to-date on their COVID vaccinations and boosters in spite of the new findings, and confirmed that the Moderna vaccine did not exhibit the same risk factors.