It took a court case in London for the AstraZeneca group to finally admit that its corona vaccine “Vaxzevria” can actually have serious side effects. However, the pharmaceutical company denies a direct causal connection. It is not known how the vaccinations can cause blood clots. The direct connection must be proven in each individual case.
This emerges from court documents obtained by the British newspaper The Telegraph already quoted on April 28th. In a class action lawsuit, those affected in Great Britain want to hold AstraZeneca liable for dozens of serious illnesses and deaths. The company’s admission “could pave the way for millions in compensation,” writes The Telegraph.
In Switzerland, those affected have no right to file class action lawsuits because the middle-class majority in parliament rejects this.
A first lawsuit had Jamie Scott submitted last year. The father of two suffered a blood clot and a cerebral hemorrhage after the vaccination in April 2021, which left him unable to work. The hospital called his wife three times to tell her that her husband was dying.
According to court documents, AstraZeneca denies the claims for damages and satisfaction, but admitted in a legal document filed with the High Court in February that its Covid vaccine “may cause TTS in very rare cases.”
TTS is the abbreviation for Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome. This leads to blood clots and a low number of blood platelets in those affected.
So far, 51 cases have been filed in the High Court, with victims and grieving families expected to claim damages of up to £100 million. With their class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs rely on the Consumer Protection Act of 1987.
Released from all liability
Because the governments exempted the manufacturers of the corona vaccines from any liability – despite top secret contractual clauses, this is now clear – the British government must cover AstraZeneca’s legal costs. And if AstraZeneca were ordered to pay damages, the state would also have to pay for it.
Lawyers for the alleged victims argue that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine was “defective” and that its effectiveness was “grossly exaggerated.” AstraZeneca denies this.
Jamie Scott said, according to The Telegraph: “We want an apology, fair compensation for our family and other families affected. We have the truth on our side. We won’t give up.”
Sarah Moore, of law firm Leigh Day, which filed the class action lawsuit, said: “It took AstraZeneca a year to formally admit that their vaccine could cause the devastating blood clots, despite this fact having been widely accepted by the clinical community since late 2021.”
In a statement, AstraZeneca said: “Our condolences go out to everyone who has lost loved ones or is reporting health problems. Patient safety is our top priority and regulators have clear and rigorous standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines.”
Regulators around the world have consistently found that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.
However, this did not apply to healthy vaccinated people without underlying illnesses who only had to fear symptoms of the flu because of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. An alternative vaccination was soon recommended for those under 40, partly because the risk of the AstraZeneca vaccine was greater than the risk of damage that the corona virus could cause in those under 40.
The company points out that since April 2021, the product information (package leaflet) for the vaccine “indicates, with the approval of the British regulator, that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine may, in very rare cases, be a trigger for TTS”.
The World Health Organization said the vaccine is “safe and effective for all people aged 18 and over.” The undesirable effect that led to the lawsuits is “very rare”.
In January 2022 the German Heart Foundation wrote: “According to the data so far, it can be assumed that thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, TTS) can be directly attributed to vaccination with Vaxzevria (and also the Covid-19 vaccine Janssen).”
In Switzerland, AstraZenica submitted its application for approval for its Covid-19 vaccine to Swissmedic in October 2020 in November 2021 withdrawn.
Kate Scott, Mr Scott’s wife, told the Telegraph: “The medical world has long recognized that TTS was caused by the vaccine. Only AstraZeneca has questioned whether Jamie’s condition was caused by the vaccination. It took three years for this admission to come.”
The then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson celebrated the vaccine as a “triumph of British science”. It is now no longer used in the UK.
Subject-related interests of the author
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