Dear Editor
May I gently take Jacqui Wise to task for her reporting of the Canadian study providing “further evidence that mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy”?
This seems to be a follow-on article to a January BMJ news item that she references “Covid-19: Vaccination during pregnancy is safe, finds large US study”.
Had she read the response to that article from GP Dr Ayiesha Malik (1), she might have chosen her words differently. Neither of these studies shows that mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy. They may, as Dr Malik pointed out, suggest that they are not known to be harmful.
To put the Canadian study in perspective, it looked at adverse events occurring in the seven days after immunisation, i.e. 2.5% of the duration of a pregnancy.
Rapid Response:
Safety First
Dear Editor
May I gently take Jacqui Wise to task for her reporting of the Canadian study providing “further evidence that mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy”?
This seems to be a follow-on article to a January BMJ news item that she references “Covid-19: Vaccination during pregnancy is safe, finds large US study”.
Had she read the response to that article from GP Dr Ayiesha Malik (1), she might have chosen her words differently. Neither of these studies shows that mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy. They may, as Dr Malik pointed out, suggest that they are not known to be harmful.
To put the Canadian study in perspective, it looked at adverse events occurring in the seven days after immunisation, i.e. 2.5% of the duration of a pregnancy.
Ref
1) https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o27/rapid-responses
Competing interests: No competing interests