Oxford-AstraZeneca is being sued in the British High Court over their Covid vaccine which has been declared “defective” in a multi-million pound landmark legal case, the Telegraph reports.
Jamie Scott, a father of two, suffered permanent brain damage as a result of a blood clot caused by the jab and is seeking damages. A second case involves the family of 35-year-old Alpa Tailor who died after receiving the vaccine.
These cases have initiated a path for other vaccine injury victims to come forward to potentially join the suit in as many as 80 damages claims worth around £80 million.
Specialists have identified a new condition called Vaccine-induced Immune Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis (VITT) that has caused the vaccine to be no longer recommended. Almost one in five people who suffered from the condition died due to blood clotting. Over 80 deaths have been reported so far.
Despite claims from the World Health Organisation that the vaccine was “safe and effective for all individuals aged 18 and above” with adverse reactions being “very rare” and Boris Johnson lauding it as “a triumph for British science,” it is no longer used in the UK.
The suit will suggest that claims over the vaccine’s efficacy were “vastly overstated.”
However, AstraZeneca still reported to the Telegraph Tuesday that its jab had “continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile” and that patient safety was its “top priority.”
It claimed that regulators worldwide “consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.”
The company has also denied it caused the injuries of Scott in its legal response.
Victims have questioned the UK government’s oversight of the vaccine rollout, as it took three months for the vaccine to be banned for people under 40 once the risk of blood clots was discovered.
An investigation into WhatsApp messages from then-health secretary Matt Hancock has suggested authorities in the US shared their concerns over AstraZeneca’s vaccine before it was rolled out. The company did not end up applying for a license in the US
The messages also reveal there were internal concerns within the company.
Sir John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford and the Government’s chief adviser on life sciences, told a senior health minister in one of the messages that AstraZeneca had become “really frazzled” about the rollout.
“They accept that their comms are a bit clunky, and they misjudged some things like clinical trials data and manufacturing, partly because they’ve not done a vaccine before,” he said.
