Vaccinations have side effects. Most side effects are “vaccination reactions”, transient and non-threatening. More serious, and much rarer, side effects, “vaccination complications,” are reportable. The Registration form of the Paul Ehrlich Institute gives a negative definition:
“Not notifiable are short-term local and general reactions that do not exceed the usual extent and are to be regarded as an expression of the organism’s struggle with the vaccine: e.g
– persistent redness, swelling or pain at the injection site for 1-3 days (sometimes longer).
– Fever below 39.50C (when measured rectally), headache and body aches, fatigue, malaise, nausea, restlessness, swelling of the regional lymph nodes
– or symptoms of a ‘vaccination disease’ (1-3 weeks after vaccination) that can be interpreted in the same way, e.g. slight swelling of the parotid gland or an exanthema similar to measles or varicella or brief arthralgias after the administration of vaccines against mumps produced on the basis of attenuated live viruses , measles, rubella or varicella.”
Medical treatment may be indicated or even necessary in the case of both vaccination reactions and vaccination complications. The health insurance companies are liable for benefits, and in work-related cases the accident insurance companies. Under certain conditions, vaccination can have negative consequences “vaccination damage” be acknowledged. Then insist after § 60 IfSG Claims against the pension offices.
Both the recording of vaccination side effects and the medical care of post-vac cases and, if necessary, the recognition of vaccination damage should be better regulated. This is well known and Karl Lauterbach now also sees a need for action. in one ZDF interview on Monday he said:
“As a state, we do it in such a way that the health insurance companies cover the treatment costs and the federal states pay the care costs if necessary. But actually we have problems on both sides. (…)
There must therefore be a faster recognition of these procedures, these damages. And we’re starting to get a clearer picture. However, it must also be pointed out, only that no wrong impression is left here: serious vaccination damage occurs – on the basis of the data from the Paul Ehrlich Institute or the European approval authority – in the order of less than 1:10,000 vaccinations. So it’s not like it’s that common.”
What is “serious vaccination damage” and to what extent does the Paul Ehrlich Institute provide data on this? In the Drug Safety Bulletin 4/2022 writes the PEI:
“A total of 333,492 suspected cases of side effects and 50,833 suspected cases of serious side effects were reported to the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut after primary immunization plus booster vaccinations. The reporting rate was 1.78 per 1,000 vaccine doses for all individual reports and 0.27 per 1,000 vaccine doses for serious individual reports.”
If that was the basis for Lauterbach’s “less than 1:10,000 vaccinations”, Lauterbach would be wrong, it would be almost three times as much. But vaccination damage and vaccination complications are two different things, so are “serious vaccination damage” and “serious individual case reports” and the rest is fog.*
The time also states this in an article worth reading that addresses the data situation and refers to a particularly dense fog, because Lauterbach later said: “1:10,000, that is the frequency of serious side effects.” That speaks for a comparison with the PEI numbers .
The numbers for applications for recognition of vaccination damage look somewhat different. The FAZ wrote yesterday to the applications according to § 60 IfSG at the pension offices:
“There were no data (…) from Brandenburg, Bremen and Saxony-Anhalt. In the other countries, a total of 6,600 applications for benefits after possible corona vaccination damage were received by mid-March. That is a good third more than in October, when the FAZ last collected the figures. The number of corona vaccination damages recognized by the pension offices has almost doubled in the countries mentioned, rising from 153 to 284. In the 13 countries, there is recognized corona vaccination damage for almost 214,000 vaccinated citizens.”
If Lauterbach had referred to it, the adjective “severe” in the case of side effects or damage aside, his number would be too low in terms of applications and too high in terms of recognition.
Helpful hints on the interpretation of Lauterbach’s number are welcome. Maybe there is a simple explanation, in the end even one that he himself does not yet know.
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* Addendum: Fog also, because the PEI reports suspected cases, vaccination consequences that have not been checked. On the other hand, there are unreported reports.