False: In the Pfizer clinical trial, 1 in 9 children suffered severe adverse reactions, leaving them unable to perform daily activities.

By: Alice Franklin
September 17 2021

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There is no evidence that 1 in 9 children suffered severe adverse reactions that left them unable to perform daily activities.The Daily Expose, a conspiracy news site, published an article on September 14 titled, "13 reasons why you should not allow your child to get the COVID-19 Vaccine." One of the claims it made was that "1 in 9 Children suffered a Severe Adverse Reaction leaving them unable to perform daily activities in the Pfizer Clinical Trial." To support this claim, the Daily Expose shares a screenshot from a presentation called "Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE): Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine." This was published in May 2021 by Dr. Megal Wallace. The same study is also published on the CDC website, which states that "the available data indicate that serious adverse events were balanced between the vaccine and placebo arms (RR 1.14; 95% CI 0.89 to 1.47, evidence type 2), and two serious adverse events were judged to be related to vaccination among over 21,000 persons vaccinated. The certainty of this estimate was reduced due to indirectness related to the short duration of follow-up and sample size to assess rare serious adverse events. Reactogenicity grade ≥3 was associated with vaccination (RR 4.27; 95% CI 3.39 to 5.38, evidence type 1). About 9% of vaccine recipients vs. 2% of placebo recipients reported grade ≥3 reactions." The Daily Expose article uses a screenshot of the reactogenic outcome to claim that 1 out of 9 children suffered from several side effects. However, that is not true. The term reactogenicity "refers to the property of a vaccine of being able to produce common, "expected" adverse reactions, especially excessive immunological responses and associated signs and symptoms, including fever and sore arm at the injection site." This means that 1 out of 9 children suffered from adverse events or common side effects. Another part of the presentation, slide 21, shows that 5 out of 1131 children suffered from serious adverse events, which equates to 0.4 percent which means that 1 in 125 children would suffer from adverse events, which still doesn't mean that they were unable to perform daily activities. This could mean that they had severe, temporary symptoms. Furthermore, according to the CDC, severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, were only reported outside of clinical trials. Myocarditis and pericarditis were also only reported outside of clinical trials. There is no evidence that 1 in 9 children suffered severe adverse reactions, leaving them unable to perform daily activities. The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.