New Study documents COVID19 Vaccine harms - Low platelets, GBS, Myocarditis - I unpack
What this video covers
In this May 2024 video, Prasad unpacks a large international vaccine-safety study — the Global Vaccine Data Network analysis covering roughly 99 million vaccinated people across eight countries, published in the journal Vaccine. The study compared observed versus expected rates of selected adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination, and Prasad walks through its findings on myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, and low platelets (thrombocytopenia).
Prasad’s framing is that the study confirms genuine safety signals that, in his view, public-health authorities were too slow to characterize honestly. He highlights the study’s detection of elevated rates of GBS after adenoviral-vector vaccines, clotting events, and myocarditis/pericarditis after mRNA vaccines — noting that these are rare events but, he argues, should have been part of an honest risk-benefit discussion, particularly for younger and healthier people. He gets specific on the signals he considers most notable: myocarditis odds ratios of 3.48 and 2.78 after mRNA products, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), transverse myelitis, febrile seizures, and Bell’s palsy across products. He argues the paper’s “everybody denominator” dilutes the signal: myocarditis concentrates in young men, and he contends that focusing the analysis on them would show a problem “tenfold” or even “hundredfold” higher.
He places the paper against the recent history of the adenoviral-vector vaccines: AstraZeneca had just announced it would cease production of its COVID vaccine, and Johnson & Johnson had abandoned its adenoviral-vector program, following vaccine-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) — which Prasad recalls was initially reported at roughly 1 in 200,000 in women 18–64, with later reports as frequent as 1 in 140,000, and which he says he called “game over” for those products at the time. His other recurring argument: the study likely underestimates the problem, because electronic health records miss asymptomatic cases (low platelets that never prompt a visit) and misdiagnosed ones (a young person’s abdominal clot the doctor never thinks to scan for).
At the same time, the chronicle notes the context: the study’s authors themselves emphasized that absolute risks were small, that the analysis was designed to detect signals rather than prove causation, and that the benefits of vaccination against severe COVID-19 were not reassessed in the paper. The study did not evaluate efficacy or the risks of COVID-19 infection itself, which Prasad’s critics argue makes it unsuitable as a standalone basis for policy conclusions.
Key points
- Prasad summarizes the Global Vaccine Data Network study, which analyzed ~99 million vaccinated individuals across eight countries for 13 adverse events of special interest.
- According to Prasad, the study found safety signals for Guillain-Barré syndrome after adenoviral-vector vaccines, as well as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and other clotting events.
- He highlights the study’s findings on myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccines, and on low platelet counts, as confirmation of risks he had discussed earlier.
- Prasad argues the findings validate his position that vaccine-safety communication was incomplete, particularly for low-risk groups.
- He singles out myocarditis odds ratios of 3.48 and 2.78 after mRNA products, plus ADEM, transverse myelitis, febrile seizures, and Bell’s palsy — arguing the “everybody denominator” dilutes a signal concentrated in young men.
- He notes AstraZeneca had just ceased production of its COVID vaccine and J&J had abandoned its adenoviral-vector program after VITT, which he says was initially reported near 1 in 200,000 in women 18–64.
- He argues the study likely underestimates the problem because electronic health records miss asymptomatic and undiagnosed cases.
- The study’s authors note — and the chronicle records — that the analysis measured observed-versus-expected events and did not establish causation or reassess vaccine benefits against COVID-19’s harms.
- Prasad uses the paper to argue for more candid risk-benefit discussions, a position critics say overstates the study’s policy implications since absolute risks were small and rare.