ROME – AstraZeneca admitted for the first time in court documents during legal proceedings in London that its Covid vaccine can cause thrombosis as a rare side effect.
The British Daily Telegraph writes this, according to which the admission could pave the way for a multi-million dollar compensation.
The pharmaceutical giant is being sued in a class action over its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford.
Lawyers argue that the drug produced a side effect that had a devastating effect on a small number of families.
AstraZeneca disputes the allegations but accepted, in a legal document submitted to London’s High Court in February, that its Covid vaccine “may, in very rare cases, cause TTS”, a thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome.
Fifty-one cases have been lodged in the High Court, with victims and relatives seeking damages worth an estimated up to £100 million. The first case was filed last year by Jamie Scott, father of two, who was left with a permanent brain injury after developing a blood clot and haemorrhage on the brain after receiving the vaccine in April 2021.
In a response letter sent in May 2023, AstraZeneca told Scott’s lawyers that it did not accept that TTS was “caused by the vaccine at a generic level”. However, “it is accepted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause Tts. The causal mechanism is not known” and “furthermore, Tts can occur even in the absence of the AZ vaccine (or any vaccine). The causal link in each individual case will be tested by experts.”
AstraZeneca stressed in any case that the product information relating to the vaccine was updated in April 2021, with the approval of the UK regulator, to include “the possibility that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine may, in cases very rare, be a trigger for TTS.”
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