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| - Last Updated on September 3, 2024 by Nivedita
Quick Take
A social media post has referred to Pfizer’s safety document for the COVID-19 vaccine to claim that the recent respiratory outbreak in China is due to the COVID-19 vaccine. We fact-checked and found the claim to be false.
The Claim
A social media post on X, formerly Twitter has claimed that the recent respiratory outbreak in China is due to the covid vaccine. The claim has been made based on referred to Pfizer’s guidance on adverse event reports related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
This post has received 856.4K views, 5,849 reposts, 340 quotes, 9,064 likes, and 2,020 bookmarks till we last checked.
We have attached a screenshot of the post below:
Fact Check
What do the Pfizer safety documents refer to?
The Pfizer safety documents became accessible to the public through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT). This request aimed to obtain access to the data utilized in the approval process of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
As of January 2022, the FDA was directed to release ‘remaining documents at a rate of 55,000 pages every 30 days, with the first batch due on or before March 1, 2022,’ as stated on page three of the official order.
These documents, shared by PHMPT, are now available to the public on their website. No evidence shows that Pfizer’s safety document reveals real dangers associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.
One of the social media posts says that there is a new mystery virus from China spreading around the world.
Is the recent respiratory outbreak among children in northern China due to the COVID-19 vaccine?
No evidence. The news release from the World Health Organization (WHO) informed that there are several factors for the recent increase in respiratory illness among children in northern China. These include the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions and the onset of the cold season. Other factors are the presence of common pathogens like influenza, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and the continued circulation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Mycoplasma pneumoniae and RSV are known to impact children more severely than adults. However, the WHO made it explicitly clear in their alert that there was no mention of a link between the outbreak and the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
Being on this list does not mean doctors have seen cases of mycoplasma pneumonia after giving the COVID-19 vaccine. It is more like a reminder for doctors to report it if they notice it. This is part of pharmacovigilance, where drug makers look at all effects of similar medicines and tell doctors to quickly report any similar effects if they see a pattern.
The Pfizer’s safety document provides a list of adverse events. These events may or may not be due to Covid vaccines. We have elaborated on the dissimilarities between adverse events and side effects in another fact-check story.
A social media post also claims that covid vaccine has nearly doubled stillbirths in Singapore.
THIP MEDIA has previously debunked a similar claim suggesting that monkeypox is an autoimmune blistering disease and a suspected adverse event in the Pfizer safety document.
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