Elevated Risk of Epilepsy, Appendicitis in Children After COVID-19 Vaccination: Study

Children who received the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines faced an elevated risk of epilepsy and appendicitis, according to a new study.

Pfizer recipients were also more likely to suffer from demyelinating disease or heart inflammation, researchers found.

Dr. Julia Hippisley-Cox, a professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences, and colleagues obtained data from a national database on COVID-19 vaccination, mortality, hospital admissions, and COVID-19 infections. They wanted to look at the link between COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna with 12 outcomes, including the heart inflammation condition called myocarditis.

The population of nearly 5.2 million included 1.8 million children aged 5 to 11 and 3.3 million children aged 12 to 17.

The data examined were through Aug. 7, 2022.

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In the primary analysis, researchers found 12- to 17-year-olds who received Pfizer’s vaccine were at increased risk of myocarditis, with an additional three cases per million versus the expected rate after a first dose, and an additional five cases per million after a second dose, and hospitalization with epilepsy, with an additional 12 cases per million after a second dose. Females in the age group also faced an increased risk of demyelinating disease after receiving a second dose of the vaccine.

Researchers also identified a “substantially increased risk of hospitalization with epilepsy” among females after receipt of a first dose of AstraZeneca’s shot, with 813 more hospitalizations with epilepsy than expected per million doses, and an elevated risk of appendicitis after a second dose of the vaccine, with 512 excess events per million doses.

While no excess events were found among Moderna recipients, the study lacked the power to detect statistically significant issues, due to few children in the UK receiving Moderna’s vaccine. Further, no elevated risks of the 12 issues were found among 5- to 11-year-olds.

A secondary analysis, involving matching some of the vaccine recipients to unvaccinated children, confirmed an increased risk among 12- to 17-year-olds of hospitalization with epilepsy following Pfizer vaccination, and elevated risks of severe allergic shock and appendicitis in the age group following Pfizer vaccination. No increased risks of any outcome were identified among minor Moderna or AstraZeneca recipients. But among a group of 18- to 24-year-olds studied, elevated risks of a number of conditions were found, including myocarditis, immune or idiopathic thrombocytopenia, epilepsy, and acute pancreatitis.

The study was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research School for Primary Care Research. Multiple authors declared conflicts of interest, including funding from Moderna and AstraZeneca. Limitations included reliance on hospital admission codes and death certificates.

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

The authors said that their findings “support a favorable safety profile of COVID-19 vaccination using mRNA vaccines in children and young people aged 5-17 years.” The Pfizer and Moderna shots utilize messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology.

Dr. Hippisley-Cox, the study’s corresponding author, did not return a request for comment seeking data on the position. The authors cited in part how they found unvaccinated children faced increased risks of some of the outcomes, including multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.

Udi Qimron, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, said that the authors wrongly downplayed the risks associated with the vaccines.

“It’s not surprising to learn that some of the study’s authors have financial ties to Moderna and AstraZeneca and/or have served on various UK and Scottish Government COVID-19 advisory groups. One author was even a member of AstraZeneca’s Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Taskforce and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. The conflict of interest in this case is significant,” Mr. Qimrom, who was not involved in the paper, told The Epoch Times via email.

“It is concerning that respected scientific platforms are being used to cover up mistakes and wrongdoing, particularly the coercion and immense societal pressure to vaccinate young children. This should never have been done,” he added. “It is disheartening to see scientific journals collaborating with such practices, which undermines public trust in scientific research, especially when it involves the health and safety of children.”