VAERS reported new-onset seizures following use of Covid 19 vaccinations
as compared to influenza vaccinations
Abstract
The incidence of new-onset seizures, which we defined as de novo
seizures occurring within four weeks of receiving any of the
FDA-approved Covid 19 vaccinations as reported in patient-reported data
compiled in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine
Adverse Events Reporting System Data (CDC VAERS) has not been explored.
The VAERS database contains de-identified patient-reported adverse
events following vaccinations and represents post-marketing surveillance
and analysis of vaccine safety. After adjusting for time at risk, this
resulted in estimated incidence rates of 3.19 seizures per 100,000
persons per year for either Pfizer, Moderna or Janssen vaccines and
0.090 seizures per 100,000 persons per year for the influenza vaccine. A
data-driven, individualized dataset that is comprehensive and coupled
with a longitudinal follow-up in larger numbers of vaccinated
individuals is needed to expand on our preliminary findings of
vaccine-related seizures. The VAERS database helps in the identification
of a safety signal detection and is fundamentally a
hypothesis-generating system; the data or results cannot be used to
analyze cause and effect.