Covid vaccines linked to unexpected vaginal bleeding | Hacker News Reader

Covid vaccines linked to unexpected vaginal bleeding

nature.com

80 pointsLinuxBender26 comments

From the very article:

> The team didn’t investigate the reasons for the unexplained bleeding, but suggested that it could be linked to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the vaccines.

Also:

> The team looked at more than 21,000 responses from postmenopausal, perimenopausal and non-menstruating premenopausal women — including some who were on long-term hormonal contraceptives.

> The results were surprising, says Blix. They found that 252 postmenopausal women, 1,008 perimenopausal women and 924 premenopausal women reported experiencing unexpected vaginal bleeding.

yup, seems pretty clear to me.

The spike protein seems like a sensible culprit considering how many people have also had extended/disrupted periods after a covid infection. Thankfully the effect seems short-lived in both cases.

> (...) how many people have also had extended/disrupted periods after a covid infection.

The article mentions less than 5% of post-menstrual women who participated in a self-reporting questionaire. Also, a subset only reported symptoms weeks after the first jab, but other subsets did not reported on the first jab but reported weeks after subsequent jabs.

Self-reported data, it seems if someone is asking you about any changes in your period, you might just start to notice if its heavy or light, and reporting 'unusually heavy' might just be a side effect of being asked the question.

What's being reported is not changes in menstrual periods. It's bleeding outside of menstrual periods.

But what are the control numbers?

Those numbers seem meaningless without rates from groups of unvaccinated women to compare with, of similar levels of health and demographics.

> But what are the control numbers?

There aren't. The study doesn't even count as a correlation.

The article mentions it was a preliminary study that followed a initial survey where people filed a questionaire on what symptoms they think they experienced. The initial questionaire included a few answers where post-menstrual women reported they experienced unexpected vaginal bleeding, and they put together a new self-reporting questionaire that focused on this topic alone.

Also from the article, it seems that less than 5% of post-menstrual women self-reported unexpected vaginal bleeding. This is what this article is about.

Also from the article, the only action item from this outcome is that, if there is indeed a correlation, doctors can consider a harmless scenario like taking the COVID vaccine as a possible cause of unexpected bleeding after menopause. Otherwise the go-to hypothesis points to serious medical conditions such as cancer.

"linked to X" is a poor word choice here. Implies a proven relationship. "Suspicious to cause X" or "could cause X" would be more clear

It's not a double-blind study designed to test a hypothesis; it's post-vaccination surveillance.

The subjects were asked about symptoms over a nine month period. The incidence of unexpected bleeding in the 4 weeks post-vaccination was 2X-3X higher than at other times in post-menopausal women, and 3X-5X higher for pre- or peri-menopausal women at times when they were not having a menstrual period. Spikevax was associated with 32% increased incidence compared to Comirnaty.

Oh. WTF is this article? “Jabs”? No one seriously studying the science of this would refer to them as that.

"Jab" is slang for injection commonly used in the UK. It's not necessarily a derogatory term.

Agree - I know plenty of British and Australian doctors who routinely say "jabs" in their day to day work, it's a completely neutral term, if anything it'd go down better with patients than "injection".

"I thought you might like an injection" https://youtu.be/3ZOoKCOWlbs

"Jab" has been used in courts too to describe "jab or job" policies.

I thought it was odd at first, but then I saw the author was from "Cambridge" and that cleared things up.

For those that don't know: "jab" was a derogatory slang used in the US when people would discuss the COVID vaccine in a negative way. I believe the US uses the word "shot" instead (not that it has any better connotations).

> For those that don't know: "jab" was a derogatory slang used in the US when people would discuss the COVID vaccine in a negative way.

lol, it's a first time i see jab as a "derogatory" definition. Mind to explain where you get it from?

It's a result of being on twitter too much lol.

I don't use Twitter so, no, it has nothing to do with Twitter.

it’s just the reality of language in America. Anti vax people tend to use the word jab mockingly, others call it the vaccine or the COVID shots.

For example you’d never hear someone say “I just got my Covid jab”.

This is exactly it. Anti-vaxxers use "jab" as a derogatory term to try and make it seem malicious.

Thanks for not downvoting me and attempting to see things from a different perspective. This is exactly what my reaction was based on. Anyone in the US is probably sick of hearing their crazy family members talk about "the jab" and all the nonsense that surrounds statements like this.

Without a control this isnt news its basically nothing. How do we differentiate the effects of vaccination and virus without a control?

why didnt nature ask for this control?

Within a couple days, you'll see influencers on IG/TikTok warning "don't get a covid booster this fall or your vag will explode".

Because that's what happens when shoddy science reporting -> lax journalism ethics -> sensationalistic lies spread across social media -> people living in echo chambers -> lack of knowledge and critical thinking abilities.

There is so much 'shielding the public from information that might lead to vaccine hesitancy' that it makes the public vaccine hesitant because they know no official source can be trusted to tell the whole truth.

Instead too many official channel is projecting what they want the truth to represent rather than what it actually is.

This lack of transparency, which your comment exudes, has a major chilling effect on hesitant folks from trusting the science.

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