Dr. Monika Naus, the medical director of the Communicable Diseases and Immunization Service at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control

Image Credit: Submitted/B.C. Centre for Disease Control

With more and more mandatory vaccine requirements being put into place, the temptation may be great to get a medical exemption.

And, while Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is offering that option during news conferences, there’s likely no legitimate medical reason not to get vaccinated.

The only possible exemption is because of a severe allergic reaction but even that is in doubt.

“For all vaccines, the legitimate medical reason not to be vaccinated is anaphylaxis or severe hypersensitivity to a component of the vaccine,” Dr. Monika Naus, the medical director of the Communicable Diseases and Immunization Service at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, told iNFOnews.ca.

“With these (COVID) vaccines, we have two lineages of vaccines. They don’t contain the same allergens. The likelihood of anyone being allergic to both mRNA vaccines and adenovirus vaccines is probably close to zero.”

Simply put, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA types that use allergens that are different than the AstraZeneca vaccine, sometimes referred to as a viral vector-based vaccine.

“So, that’s the only legitimate reason,” Dr. Naus said. “Even this is coming into question now because it’s not clear that the severe allergic reactions being seen after these vaccines are actually due to the allergens in the product.”

And, as far as other conditions making it medically impossible to take vaccines, there aren’t any.

“In terms of people with autoimmune disorders, multiple sclerosis, various forms of immunocompromise, no,” Dr. Naus said “The vaccines are recommended for all populations.

“There are some recommendations about postponing vaccinations if you’ve just been treated with an aggressive immunosuppressive drug but that’s not for your safety. It’s because we want you to have the best response to the vaccine so we don’t want to give it to you when you’re not likely to respond.”

During a news briefing yesterday, Oct. 5, Dr. Henry imposed a requirement for all visitors to health care facilities to be fully vaccinated after Sept. 26 and explained that health care workers who are not fully vaccinated will be put on unpaid leave.

READ MORE: Mandatory COVID vaccinations for visitors to B.C. health-care facilities

“We have made allowances only for medical exemptions,” she said. “We have put out information to physicians and nurse practitioners around the province about what constitutes a valid medical exemption and we’ve been working very closely with immunologists and allergists who are experts in vaccines at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control to make sure that we have all the information that you need. So, you must have a valid medical contra-indication and those are very few.”

While there is still discussion about whether severe allergic reactions are cause for medical exemptions to vaccines, there is a process in place to track all adverse reactions, Dr. Naus said.

The clinical trials for the COVID vaccines were, because of the nature of the pandemic, shorter than normal, covering only two months and about 30,000 subjects.

But, even with the regular trials for any vaccine or medication, the sample size is relatively small compared to the entire population so very rare reactions can take time to show up, Dr. Naus explained. When they do show up and are clearly traceable to the vaccines, that information is added to the label and product information sheets.

B.C. has had a process in place for many years to track adverse reactions. It was made mandatory in 2019, before COVID.

It’s called postmarket safety surveillance where physicians report adverse events for all vaccines to local health authorities.

Adverse events are reactions that are not expected based on reactions seen during the clinical trials which are listed on the labels or information sheets that go with the vaccines.

For example, soreness of the injection site is not unusual and would not be reported unless it persists for nine days or requires medical attention, Dr. Naus said.

Each report is reviewed by a medical health officer and responses sent back to the doctors with one of three recommendations: to continue with the vaccinations as scheduled, to delay the second injection or cancel the second injection.

That information is fed into provincial and national databases. The provincial database shows there were 3,428 reports of adverse events up to Sept. 18, some of which contained more than one adverse reaction following vaccination.

Of those, 3,181 were considered non-serious and 247, or 7.2% of the adverse events were listed as serious out of 7.7 million doses administered.

The most frequent reactions were allergic, ranging from a rash and hives to anaphylaxis. But, the report notes, just because the events followed vaccinations, that doesn’t necessarily mean they were caused by the vaccination.

For example, if someone got a blood clot (pulmonary embolism)after a vaccination that would have to be weighed against things like the rate of blood clots in the population and individual factors like platelet counts or whether they had been on a long flight. Ultimately, a doctor would have to diagnose the cause, Dr. Naus said.

On the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website, under the heading of “Who should not get a COVID-19 vaccine?” it says only that, if you have severe allergic reaction to ingredients in one type of vaccine (and they’re listed) then you should get the other type of vaccine.

That means the push by health authorities to get 100% of the population vaccinated should be possible. To help get there, numerous orders for mandatory vaccinations have been put in place.

Yesterday, the B.C. government ordered all of its employees to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 22.

READ MORE: All B.C. government employees need to get vaccinated

Everyone working in long term care and assisted living facilities have to be vaccinated by Oct. 12 and all those in acute care facilities by Oct. 26.

The federal government announced today that all federal employees and those in federally regulated transportation industries, including airlines and airports, and travellers have to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 30.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Rob Munro or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

News from © iNFOnews, 2021