Blood clots from the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine? What about the contraceptive pill? Doctors explain
- The AstraZeneca vaccine has been linked with rare blood clots, and a number of countries have stopped using it
- Women in Hong Kong and elsewhere are calling physicians and using social media to ask about similar risks from hormonal contraceptives, and other vaccine issues
Hong Kong family physician Natalie Hutchins has been inundated with calls since the city started rolling out its Covid-19 vaccination programme in February.
Reassuring patients about potential after-effects of the different jabs is part of Hutchins’ daily routine, as people struggle to process the overload of information – from proven side-effects to conspiracy theories – circulating online.
And she says most calls are from women. “There are a lot of scary stories circulating on the internet, about infertility, about the impact of vaccines on fetuses,” says Hutchins. “There is a lot of misinformation spreading about vaccines and women’s health, and that’s dangerous.”
“I try to reassure my patients by saying that we must focus on what the evidence shows,” Hutchins says. “And the evidence shows that these vaccines are really safe. But we understand it can be a tricky thing for people to get their heads around.”
