Holme, chief physician at
Oslo University Hospital, was tasked with investigating a series of cases where young healthcare workers experienced blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine,
according to ZeroHedge.
Holme said on Thursday, before the EMA
released its findings of what he described as a “hastily conducted safety review,” that he had a theory about what caused the reactions in three healthcare workers under 50, and that the
AstraZeneca shot was the trigger:
“Our theory that this is a powerful immune response which most likely was caused by the vaccine has been found. In collaboration with experts in the field from the University Hospital of North Norway HF, we have found specific antibodies against blood platelets that can cause these reactions, and which we know from other fields of medicine, but then with medical drugs as the cause of the reaction.”
Though Holme acknowledged it was just a theory, he said there was nothing else that could have triggered such an intense immune response in all three patients. The vaccine was the only common factor.
“There is nothing in the patient history of these individuals that can give such a powerful immune response. I am confident that the antibodies that we have found are the cause, and I see no other explanation than it being the vaccine which triggers it,”
Holme said.
Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) today reported that there had been five cases of a rare type of blood clot in the brain among those vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s vaccine. But agency officials said they found the benefits of the shot far outweighed any possible risks,
according to Reuters.
Though many European countries paused the rollout of the shot while the EMA investigated the rising reports of blood clots, MHRA
said that use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine should continue and that it likely would — even if a link between the shot and blood clot disorders were proven.
“The benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19, with its associated risk of hospitalization and death, continue to outweigh the risks of potential side effects,”
said June Raine, MHRA chief executive.
The decision this week by
more than 20 European countries to temporarily suspended use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine
caused a rift between vaccine safety experts, who said the cases of blood clotting and reported deaths were alarming and unusual, and public health officials concerned that pausing the vaccine could delay
Europe’s vaccine roll-out and
amplify vaccine hesitancy.
According to
The New York Times, the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine had as much to do with political considerations as scientific ones. Critics blamed Germany for the suspensions that followed in other countries.
Germany’s Health Minister, Jens Spahn, acted on expert advice after Germany’s vaccine oversight body, the
Paul Ehrlich Institute, reported on what it described as a statistically significant number of cases of a rare brain blood clot. A “chaotic round of telephone diplomacy” ended with the EU’s biggest states agreeing to put AstraZeneca on hold,
reported Reuters.
Ian Jones, professor of virology at Britain’s Reading University, said the blood clot issue had “been picked up by politicians who don’t know one side of a virus from another.”
A senior German government source denied that Berlin had exerted any pressure, noting that smaller EU member states such as Austria and Belgium had already raised the alarm.
“Nobody is being forced to do anything,”
said the German source. “That’s not how the EU works.”
Prior to today’s announcement by the EMA, AstraZeneca
said it had reviewed its COVID-19 immunization data and found no evidence of any increased risk of blood clots in any age group or gender in any country.
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