scholarly journals The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 693
Author(s):  
Harald Walach ◽  
Rainer J. Klement ◽  
Wouter Aukema
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Confidence Interval ◽  
Field Study ◽  
Adverse Reactions ◽  
Safety Data ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Point Estimate ◽  
Drug Reactions ◽  
Vaccination Policy ◽  
Risks And Benefits

Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and benefits. Method: We calculated the number needed to vaccinate (NNTV) from a large Israeli field study to prevent one death. We accessed the Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) database of the European Medicines Agency and of the Dutch National Register (lareb.nl) to extract the number of cases reporting severe side effects and the number of cases with fatal side effects. Result: The NNTV is between 200–700 to prevent one case of COVID-19 for the mRNA vaccine marketed by Pfizer, while the NNTV to prevent one death is between 9000 and 50,000 (95% confidence interval), with 16,000 as a point estimate. The number of cases experiencing adverse reactions has been reported to be 700 per 100,000 vaccinations. Currently, we see 16 serious side effects per 100,000 vaccinations, and the number of fatal side effects is at 4.11/100,000 vaccinations. For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination. Conclusions: This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy.

scholarly journals DIC-Like Syndrome Following Administration of ChAdOx1 nCov-19 Vaccination

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1046
Author(s):  
Gerardo Casucci ◽  
Domenico Acanfora
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation ◽  
Adverse Reactions ◽  
Thrombus Formation ◽  
European Countries ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Safety Committee ◽  
Vectored Vaccine ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Prompt Diagnosis

In recent weeks, adverse reactions have been reported after administration of Oxford–AstraZeneca chimpanzee adenovirus vectored vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222), in particular thrombus formation, which has led several European Countries to discontinue administration of this vaccine. On March 8, 2021, the European Medicines Agency Safety Committee did not confirm this probable association. We report the case of a patient who developed disseminated intravascular coagulation after the first dose of Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine, which resolved in a few days with the administration of dexamethasone and enoxaparin. This work demonstrates the safety of the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine and that any development of side effects can be easily managed with a prompt diagnosis and in a short time with a few commonly used drugs.

Adverse reactions in mRCC patients documented in routine practice by German office-based oncologists and uro-oncologists

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Marschner ◽  
Lothar Müller ◽  
Axel Münch ◽  
Klaus Blumenstengel ◽  
Ulrich Hutzschenreuter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Adverse Drug Reactions ◽  
Medical Records ◽  
Adverse Reactions ◽  
Safety Data ◽  
Routine Practice ◽  
Drug Reactions ◽  
First Line ◽  
Clinical Registry ◽  
Signal Transduction Inhibitors

Background Signal transduction inhibitors (STIs) have considerably improved treatment of advanced/metastasized renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Most safety data for these drugs are derived from clinical trials. The purpose of this study was to evaluate which adverse drug reactions are documented during first-line treatments in routine clinical practice. Patients and methods The ongoing prospective German mRCC clinical registry is recruiting patients in 110 oncology and urology outpatient centers. Data from the first 250 patients who had completed first-line treatment were analyzed regarding adverse drug reactions (ADRs) documented in patients’ medical records. Results Patients were older than in clinical trials and had comorbidities. Patients were treated with the STIs sunitinib (61%), temsirolimus (14%), sorafenib (10%), or bevacizumab combined with interferon (6%). About 520 ADRs were documented, of which 29% resulted in treatment modifications. The most frequently affected organ system was the gastrointestinal system. The most frequently documented ADRs were mucositis/stomatitis (14%), fatigue (14%), diarrhea (12%), and nausea (12%). Conclusions In routine practice, mRCC first-line treatments using STIs frequently lead to ADRs partly necessitating treatment modifications. The pattern of reported ADRs is similar to that reported in clinical trials, but frequencies of events differ, especially for symptoms of multifactorial origin that are not immediately associated with the treatment. These results indicate that perception and documentation of adverse reactions is different between clinical trials and routine practice, and that reviews of patients’ medical records might not be the best method to assess safety in routine practice.

Adverse Drug Reactions to Radiographic Contrast Media in a Teaching Hospital in North India: An Observational Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-126
Author(s):  
Deepti Chopra ◽  
Abhinav Jain ◽  
Richa Garg ◽  
Shreya Dhingra
Keyword(s):  
Observational Study ◽  
Contrast Media ◽  
Adverse Drug Reactions ◽  
Teaching Hospital ◽  
Adverse Reactions ◽  
North India ◽  
Drug Reactions ◽  
Iodinated Contrast ◽  
Radiographic Contrast ◽  
Radiographic Contrast Media

Background: Radiocontrast media are used extensively nowadays to visualize internal organs. Currently, non-ionic iodinated contrast media are used which are generally considered to be safe but some adverse reactions have been reported. Thus, the present study was carried out to analyze the nature and incidence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to radiographic contrast media in a teaching hospital. Methods:An observational study carried out for a period of six months in a teaching hospital. Contrast media induced adverse reactions were analyzed in terms of affected organs, rate, causality assessment, severity and preventability. The treatment and outcomes of adverse events were also recorded. Naranjo Probability Scale was used to evaluate the relationship between the contrast agent used and the suspected ADR. The severity of the suspected ADRs was determined using Hartwig Scale and preventability was assessed using modified Schumock and Thornton criterion. Results:A total of 15 suspected ADRs occurred in 11 patients with an incidence of 1.4%. It included 5 (45.4%) males and 6 (54.5%) females (p < 05). The highest percentage (72.7 %) of ADRs was seen in adult patients, the mean age being 40.8 years. Vomiting (33.3%) was the most common ADR noted followed by severe nausea and rashes. 64.7 % of ADRs were categorized as probable and 35.3 % were possible. Adverse reactions required treatment in 46.6% patients. There was no fatality reported. Conclusion:The reactions observed were mild to moderate in severity and occurred within 30 minutes of the administration of the contrast.

scholarly journals Recent advances in understanding NRF2 as a druggable target: development of pro-electrophilic and non-covalent NRF2 activators to overcome systemic side effects of electrophilic drugs like dimethyl fumarate

F1000Research ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takumi Satoh ◽  
Stuart Lipton
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Specific Interaction ◽  
Dimethyl Fumarate ◽  
Carnosic Acid ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Related Factor ◽  
Inflammatory Phase ◽  
First Case ◽  
Systemic Side Effects ◽  
Transcriptional Pathway

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an electrophilic compound previously called BG-12 and marketed under the name Tecfidera®. It was approved in 2013 by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis. One mechanism of action of DMF is stimulation of the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2) transcriptional pathway that induces anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory phase II enzymes to prevent chronic neurodegeneration. However, electrophiles such as DMF also produce severe systemic side effects, in part due to non-specific S-alkylation of cysteine thiols and resulting depletion of glutathione. This mini-review presents the present status and future strategy for NRF2 activators designed to avoid these side effects. Two modes of chemical reaction leading to NRF2 activation are considered here. The first mode is S-alkylation (covalent reaction) of thiols in Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (KEAP1), which interacts with NRF2. The second mechanism involves non-covalent pharmacological inhibition of protein-protein interactions, in particular domain-specific interaction between NRF2 and KEAP1 or other repressor proteins involved in this transcriptional pathway. There have been significant advances in drug development using both of these mechanisms that can potentially avoid the systemic side effects of electrophilic compounds. In the first case concerning covalent reaction with KEAP1, monomethyl fumarate and monoethyl fumarate appear to represent safer derivatives of DMF. In a second approach, pro-electrophilic drugs, such as carnosic acid from the herb Rosmarinus officinalis, can be used as a safe pro-drug of an electrophilic compound. Concerning non-covalent activation of NRF2, drugs are being developed that interfere with the direct interaction of KEAP1-NRF2 or inhibit BTB domain and CNC homolog 1 (BACH1), which is a transcriptional repressor of the promoter where NRF2 binds.

scholarly journals Automatic Extraction of Adverse Drug Reactions from Summary of Product Characteristics

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 2663
Author(s):  
Zhengru Shen ◽  
Marco Spruit
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Adverse Drug Reactions ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Drug Reactions ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Product Characteristics ◽  
Textual Information ◽  
Summary Of Product Characteristics

The summary of product characteristics from the European Medicines Agency is a reference document on medicines in the EU. It contains textual information for clinical experts on how to safely use medicines, including adverse drug reactions. Using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to automatically extract adverse drug reactions from such unstructured textual information helps clinical experts to effectively and efficiently use them in daily practices. Such techniques have been developed for Structured Product Labels from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but there is no research focusing on extracting from the Summary of Product Characteristics. In this work, we built a natural language processing pipeline that automatically scrapes the summary of product characteristics online and then extracts adverse drug reactions from them. Besides, we have made the method and its output publicly available so that it can be reused and further evaluated in clinical practices. In total, we extracted 32,797 common adverse drug reactions for 647 common medicines scraped from the Electronic Medicines Compendium. A manual review of 37 commonly used medicines has indicated a good performance, with a recall and precision of 0.99 and 0.934, respectively.

Adverse Drug Reactions to acetaminophen and ibuprofen in the paediatric population: analysis of the Italian spontaneous reporting database

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Pelliccia ◽  
Serena Rossi ◽  
Ilaria Zollino ◽  
Francesco Quagliarella ◽  
Giuseppe Buonocore
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Spontaneous Reporting ◽  
Soft Tissues ◽  
Population Analysis ◽  
Kidney Injury ◽  
Paediatric Population ◽  
Drug Reactions ◽  
Spontaneous Reporting Database ◽  
Drug Agency ◽  
Active Substances

Background: Acetaminophen and ibuprofen are the only antipyretics drugs approved in children, and are considered safe and well tolerated. However, data regarding the adverse drug reaction (ADR) profile of these drugs in children are scattered. Aim: The aim of our study is to evaluate the ADRs of acetaminophen and ibuprofen through an observational study over a period of 15 years (January 2005-April 2020). Reports of suspected ADRs to the active substances ‘acetaminophen’ and ‘ibuprofen’ are listed and accessible through the Italian spontaneous reporting database (RAM system) by AIFA (Pharmacovigilance of the Italian Drug Agency). Methods: Acetaminophen ADRs in paediatric populations were 15% of cases, with more frequent involvement of skin and soft tissue (54.36%) and gastrointestinal apparatus (44.09%); liver dysfunction accounts for 5.67%. Results: Ibuprofen paediatric ADRs were 26%: skin and soft tissues in 63.16% of cases, gastrointestinal tract in 47.75%, hematemesis and melena in 6.38%; kidney injury in 2.25% of cases. Conclusion: Children aged 2 to 11 are more frequently affected by ADRs than infants and adolescents. The risk of gastrointestinal and renal side effects is significantly higher with ibuprofen. Hepatobiliary side effects are more frequently linked to acetaminophen. Potentially fatal ADRs have been reported sporadically for both drugs.

scholarly journals Evaluation of medicines advertising in medical journals

2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-312
Author(s):  
Daliana Maria Berenice de Oliveira Souza ◽  
Suellen Cristiane Medeiros de Lima ◽  
Almária Mariz Batista ◽  
Maria Cleide Ribeiro Dantas de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Adverse Reactions ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Medical Prescription ◽  
Medical Journals ◽  
Registration Number ◽  
The Common

This work intended to analyze the advertising of medicines requiring medical prescription, divulged into three journals of the neurology and cardiology areas addressed to healthcare professionals. The analysis was based on current legislation, among other criteria, as well as specific literature. The presence of the following items was investigated: registration number, drug name, specific indications, contraindications; cautions and warnings; adverse reactions; possible side effects; posology; legibility of technical-scientific information and bibliographic references, phrases and/or expressions about the medication benefits, as compared to other drugs; safety warnings, healing promises and pictures of people smiling, and the quotations confirmation based on bibliographic references. Among the evaluated legal criteria, it was observed the absence of legibility in technical-scientific information in 85% of advertisements; absence of side effects in 23%; absence of cautions and warnings in 15%; of contraindications in 12.8%; of posology in 6.4%; of registration numbers in 2.7% and of the Common Brazilian Denomination/Common International Denomination (Denominação Comum Brasileira/Denominação Comum Internacional - DCB/DCI) in 0.6%. Out of 130 statements respecting advantages face to others drugs, 23.8% were not confirmed and out of 48 divulged safety messages, 41.7% could not be found in quoted references. The pictures of people smiling was a resource used in 42.2% of advertisements. Out of 1362 references analyzed, 19.7% were not found and 37.1% of quoted affirmations weren't confirmed.

scholarly journals A Review of Adverse Cutaneous Drug Reactions Resulting from the Use of Interferon and Ribavirin

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 677-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha Mistry ◽  
Jonathan Shapero ◽  
Richard I Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Drug Reactions ◽  
Drug Induced ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
Injection Site Reactions ◽  
Drug Eruptions ◽  
Fixed Drug ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Cutaneous Drug Reactions ◽  
Systemic Drug

Drug-induced cutaneous eruptions are named among the most common side effects of many medications. Thus, cutaneous drug eruptions are a common cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in hospital settings. The present article reviews different presentations of drug-induced cutaneous eruptions, with a focus on eruptions reported secondary to the use of interferon and ribavirin. Presentations include injection site reactions, psoriasis, eczematous drug reactions, alopecia, sarcoidosis, lupus, fixed drug eruptions, pigmentary changes and lichenoid eruptions. Also reviewed are findings regarding life-threatening systemic drug reactions.

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