Children as young as 6 continued receiving AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in a 2021 U.K. clinical trial, even though U.K. government advisers were aware of a potentially deadly blood clot risk, a newly released document reveals. GB News first reported the story Monday.
The revelations arise from the minutes of a May 21, 2021, meeting of the Commission on Human Medicines, which advises the U.K. government on medicine safety, efficacy and quality. The meeting addressed a “very small but potentially very serious risk” of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).
VITT is a life-threatening syndrome that causes blood clots (thrombosis) and low blood platelet counts (thrombocytopenia). It has been linked to both mRNA and non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, including the AstraZeneca shot.
The partially redacted document, marked “Official — Sensitive Commercial” and “Not for Publication,” shows that at least one member at the meeting argued that the trial “should be allowed to proceed” even though there is often “no successful intervention” available for VITT.
The minutes revealed that the U.K.’s Paediatric Medicines Expert Advisory Group agreed that the clinical trial — which enrolled 262 children ages 6-17, including 112 kids ages 6-11 — should continue, even though the clinical trial was temporarily paused in April 2021 to investigate reports of “extremely rare” blood clots.
The meeting’s participants — including several advisers with ties to AstraZeneca or Oxford University, the vaccine’s co-developer — reached this conclusion despite acknowledging that the vaccine’s “direct benefit” to kids was “quite remote” and that the benefit of vaccination “when balanced against risk is low.”
