I know there are some people suffering from low hemoglobin, anemia and other effects after taking the Covid vaccines. There is no doubt in my mind that the vaccine may have caused or accelerated some of these. For that, I am truly sorry. However, there is also no doubt in my mind that the vaccine saved thousands of lives, and lessened the severity of virus in thousands of others. That is why there has been so much pressure to get everyone vaccinated.
I debated very hard about replying, because I know some people are not going to be happy with what I say. I am going to try to give the VAERS numbers some context.
The adverse event information is available here: https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html Remember these are reports of events that occurred near the time of vaccination, not proof that the vaccine caused the event. The information is gathered so that manufacturers and regulatory agencies can be aware of potential dangers. Serious and frequently occurring events are studied to determine whether the vaccine can be made safer, whether any risks of side effects are outweighed by the need to control the disease, and whether certain people should be advised to avoid the vaccine. Finally, the results are reviewed to determine whether the incidence of the side effect after vaccine is higher than the "background" incidence - the number of people in the population who typically are diagnosed with that side effect in a given period.
In that context, as of today, there are 799,000 adverse event reports in VAERS from Covid vaccines. 562,000,000 doses have been delivered to 256,000,000 million people. Of those 332,000,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine have been delivered to 125,000,000 people This is according to https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total.
There are now 3261 events related to anemia or ferritin reported by 2439 people. Of those, 1679 were reported by Pfizer recipients. So 1679 events out of 125,000,000 recipients of Pfizer vaccine or 13 per million (.0013 percent)
According to the NIH (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5112924/) about 18.5 million people (5.6%) in the US have some anemia, and 5 million (1.5%) have moderate to severe anemia. In 2018 (pre-Covid and pre-vaccine) 890,000 people (.27%) sought care in emergency rooms alone for anemia.
Finally, I cannot locate specific statistics, but a common long-term effect of Covid infection itself is anemia or iron deficiency, often quite severe. This has been known since early 2020, and led many to seek ER or medical care, including my own daughter (even before the vaccine was available.)
With all of that said, while side effects are awful when they happen to us, the disease is worse. I have a high risk of hyper-inflammatory reaction every time I get a vaccine (Covid, flu, shingles, tetanus...) but I still get the injections to protect me and all those around me, and just deal with the side effects.
Sue
Thanks so much for all the information and stats surrounding this. It’s helpful to know that while the reported incidences of this aren’t statistically high, that it has been reported and noted. I have just recently found out I’m anemic, with no previous history, and just starting down the path of trying to figure out why and I’m worried.