‘It Should Never Have Been Rolled Out In India In The First Place’
New Delhi: Eminent British-Indian Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, who has been leading international calls for the suspension of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, said on Tuesday that OxfordAstraZeneca’s jab, administered in India as Covishield, was even “worse” in terms of cardiovascular effects, heart attacks and strokes.
Dr Malhotra, who has demanded a full safety review into the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine, told PTI Cov ishield “should never have been rolled out in the country in the first place”.
Dr Malhotra is National Health Service (NHS) trained medic and he has had two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. He is in India this week to deliver a series of lectures on COVID vaccines to try and make an “evidencebased case” for their suspension. He said there have already been international calls to suspend mRNA vaccines like those manufac tured by Pfizer and Moderna because of the serious adverse effects especially relat ed to the cardiovascular sys tem. However, a comparison done up till June 2021, and published in a peer-reviewed research journal, showed that the Oxford/AstraZene ca’s Covid vaccine is far worse than Pfizer’s mRNA jab in terms of cardiovascular effects, heart attacks, strokes, soime death and clot ting problem in both younger and older adults, he said.
“We also have the phar macovigilance data, which is post marketing data, after the vaccine was approved and rolled out in the UK. We had 8,00,000 reports of ad verse effects which were be yond mild after administer ing 9.7 million doses, almost 10 per cent,” he said. “This is unprecedented.”
“Why was AstraZeneca’s Covishield administered in India when it was suspended in the UK and some Europe an countries due to severe side effects?” he said. “There needs to be immediate sus pension pending inquiry as to why India got this so very very wrong .””
The World Health Organisation (WHO) had said last year that the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is “safe and effective for all individuals aged 18 and above”.
“The Astra-Zeneca vaccine can be offered to people who have had COVID-19 in the past. But individuals may choose to delay vaccination for three months following the infection, the WHO ad vice from June 2022 reads. Dr Malhotra said the major issue is that commercial entities and big pharma companies were allowed to control the politicians, regulators, media and ultimately that created a pandemic of misinformation amongst doctors and unwittingly harmed members of the public.
