Hacker News Reader

Comment by rewmie | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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

yup, seems pretty clear to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com