Doctors link rare blood clotting disorder to COVID Vaccines

Doctors in Pennsylvania reported a case of a U.S. patient who developed blood clots after receiving the Moderna COVID vaccine.

Although Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca COVID vaccines have been under the microscope for their potential to cause blood clots, scientists have warned since December that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines pose similar risks.

In a case report, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine June 29, healthcare professionals at the Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh said a 65-year-old man arrived at the hospital with a serious form of blood clotting known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (TTS) just 10 days after receiving his second dose of the Moderna vaccine.

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Two days later, the unnamed patient died, with doctors concluding his symptoms were consistent with vaccine-induced clotting, also known as VITT.

The man’s treatment providers did not recognize VITT earlier, so the man did not receive the specialized treatment given to people who suffer from VITT, but instead was treated with heparin.

“Had we suspected VITT or TTS earlier, we would have treated the patient differently,” the doctors wrote.

Although the man suffered from chronic hypertension and high cholesterol levels, doctors were unable to identify other causes of the clotting, including SARS-CoV-2 infection, other infections, immune thrombocytopenia or thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.

The doctors said their findings “fulfil the interim case definition of VITT or TTS” set out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Brighton Collaboration and further blood tests strengthened the likelihood of a vaccine-linked condition. Doctors stated they believed this to be the first reported case of blood clots following an mRNA vaccine, despite thousands of reported cases to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).

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While the doctors called their evidence for VITT “robust,” they cautioned other causes of clotting could not be ruled out.

A search of VAERS, using search criteria including reports of blood clots associated with blood coagulation disorders, produced a total of 6,787 reports for all three vaccines from Dec. 14, 2020 through June 18, 2021.

Of the 6,787 cases reported, there were 2,893 reports attributed to Pfizer, 2,394 reports with Moderna and 1,459 reports with J&J.

In a study published by Oxford University, researchers found the number of people who developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) blood clots after COVID vaccines was about the same for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

According to the Oxford study, 4 in 1 million people experienced CVST during the two weeks following vaccination with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, versus 5 in 1 million people who developed the condition after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine