You may have heard about a reporting system for vaccines where people (anyone) can report ‘things’ related to vaccines. These ‘things’ are called adverse events in medicine. Adverse events can be minor or they can be major. Adverse events are things that cause harm to the patient. Adverse events can happen with any medication, any procedure, any device, any intervention at all (including things as benign appearing as surveys and questionnaires — these can cause psychological harm).
Adverse events can happen with any medication, any procedure, any device, any intervention. Click To TweetSome have argued that the very existence of this vaccine reporting system is proof that vaccines are inherently dangerous. This system, which is called the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System System (VAERS), is designed to monitor the vaccines that are used in our country and act as an early warning system. This is a good thing because it should detect if there are events related to any vaccines and is intended to [taken from VAERS website]:
- Detect new, unusual, or rare vaccine adverse events;
- Monitor increases in known adverse events;
- Identify potential patient risk factors for particular types of adverse events;
- Assess the safety of newly licensed vaccines;
- Determine and address possible reporting clusters (e.g., suspected localized [temporally or geographically] or product-/batch-/lot-specific adverse event reporting);
- Recognize persistent safe-use problems and administration errors;
- Provide a national safety monitoring system that extends to the entire general population for response to public health emergencies, such as a large-scale pandemic influenza vaccination program.
Why am I bringing this up? My physician recently filed a VAERS report on me for the seasonal flu vaccine I received. So what happened? The vaccine was administered improperly and injected too high on my arm. This has resulted in persistent shoulder pain that may last for several months. I’m unable to freely move my shoulder, it aches during the day, affects my ability to carry my children, and wakes me up several times per night. This is an adverse event related to a vaccine. Is it a result of the vaccine? Without a doubt. Did I think it needed to be reported to the system? Sort of….these reports can be tracked and show where the majority of the errors are occurring and if there is a pattern, then interventions can can be devised to correct the problem.
The inappropriate administration of ANY vaccine would result in a similar reaction. In the VAERS, the majority of the reported cases of shoulder injury are related to the flu vaccines. This is a prime example of why correlation does not mean causation. The correlation of flu vaccines and shoulder injuries are likely because of the number of flu vaccines that are given each year is high (but not high enough in my opinion) and the fact that childhood immunizations are given in the legs which reduces the incidence in children who receive the majority of the non seasonal vaccines.
So yeah, total bummer on the flu shot this year. This injury is actually an included event in the vaccine injury compensation program. This program is a topic for another post, but the brief overview is that this program was started as an alternative to the legal system as a ‘no fault’ method for people to seek compensation if they had been injured by a vaccine. In 2017, the compensation program paid out $19,921,679 to 163 patients. That is a lot of money and if it was split evenly, it is over $100,000 per case!
Am I aggravated that I was injured by the flu vaccine this year? Yeah, it completely stinks. Luckily for me I have a desk job. However, I realize it could be a real problem if I was an athlete or did manual labor and for those people, maybe seeking compensation would make sense; I don’t know.
Do I think the person who administered it should be punished or sued? No, I think they need re-education. Do I think the flu vaccine was designed poorly and vaccine manufacturers are out to wreck my shoulder at the cost of a profit? Of course not.
I’m not here to debate on the effectiveness of the vaccines or how the vaccine injury compensation program is designed and run. I’m not even here to complain about my shoulder. I’m just here to remind you that when you read a news story, really read it. Investigate it. Critically evaluate the source and do your own investigation into what is being reported. Research both sides; don’t stick to the information that only supports your own belief. These are things that we must do to take care of ourselves, our family, and our society.
Will I get the flu shot next year? Absolutely.
