Our collaboration with Dr. Tess Lawrie of the Evidence-based Medicine Consultancy led to her writing an open letter to Dr June Raine, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
The letter presents the initial findings of our joint analysis of the very limited information that the MHRA weekly Yellow Card scheme reports provide.
The letter also calls for an immediate halt of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout while further, more detailed, analysis of the Yellow Card reports data is made.
Key Findings and Concerns
In her letter, Dr Lawrie explains that the true prevalence of certain reactions up to and including death had apparently gone unnoticed because similar conditions had been classified in different ways.
For example, the MHRA report that there have been 24 fatalities from brain clots and bleeds. However our analysis showed that there were an additional 832 fatalities of this nature that had mainly been classified under nervous system, respiratory system or cardiac conditions.
Similarly, with immune system reactions, the “headline” MHRA figure is 4 fatalities of this nature, but again by searching the reports for keywords relating to the immune system, we unearthed an additional 167 deaths.
The key issue is that as there are so many different ways of categorising identical or similar conditions, the significance and frequency of certain reactions is missed. Twenty seemingly different categories each with a handful of reports in each does not raise concerns whereas one category with all those reports in shows a very different, and more worrying, picture.