Few Side Effects Conclusively Linked to COVID-19 Vaccines: National Academies

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines cause heart inflammation, a new report from a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee says.

But the organization’s report also says that the current body of evidence does not support or establish a causal link between the messenger RNA vaccines and virtually any other side effects, drawing criticism from some outside experts.

The NASEM convened a committee to review evidence as to whether the vaccines cause certain conditions, such as heart inflammation and infertility. The review was done at the request of the Health Resources and Services Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and received assistance from government officials.

Some shoulder injuries, including swelling, are also caused by all four COVID-19 vaccines that have been administered in the United States, according to the report.

But those are the only harms that can be conclusively linked to the vaccines, the committee concluded.

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Available evidence does “favor acceptance of a causal relationship” between Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and two conditions, the report states. The conditions are Guillain-Barre syndrome, or an immune system disorder that can result in paralysis, and thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or blood clotting with low levels of blood platelets. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is no longer available.

Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.

For the rest of the conditions studied, the available evidence either favors rejection of a relationship or is insufficient at this time, the report states. Overall, 20 conclusions were made, while 65 others were not due to a lack of evidence.

“Despite a large body of evidence from extraordinary efforts by investigators around the world, our committee found that in many cases, if not most, evidence was insufficient to accept or reject causality for a particular potential harm from a specific COVID-19 vaccine,” Dr. Anne Bass, professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and vice chair of the committee, said in a statement. “In other cases, we did find sufficient evidence to favor rejection, favor acceptance, or establish causality. It is important to note, however, that identifying a harm does not mean that it occurs frequently. Harms associated with vaccines are rare.”

NASEM is a private nonprofit, created by Congress, that advises the government.

The review went over studies and reports that were published in journals on or before Oct. 17, 2023.

Limitations of the work, which was funded by the U.S. government, included it not being a systematic review. A systematic review, which consists of a more in-depth examination of issues, was not carried out in part because of time concerns.

Dr. Danice Hertz, research lead for the vaccine-injured advocacy group React19, told The Epoch Times via email that literature on problems that have appeared after COVID-19 vaccination “is extremely limited due to the resistance to publish articles of such nature,” which makes it difficult to reach conclusions on causality.

She also noted that reports lodged with two national surveillance systems, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and V-safe, were not included in the review.

“These reports need to be addressed. They are more representative of the true risk of adverse events than review of the scant literature,” Dr. Hertz said.

Dr. George Isham, senior fellow at HealthPartners Institute and chair of the committee, said in a statement that the report “is a snapshot in time” and that the view on vaccines and potential harms could change as more research is conducted.

Members of the 15-person committee included Dr. Alicia Christy, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Uniformed Services University; Dr. Chandy John, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University’s school of medicine; and Ousseny Zerbo, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente Northern California who holds a doctorate in epidemiology.