Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many yellow card reports there have been on covid-19 vaccines.

The number of Yellow Card reports received by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for COVID-19 vaccines can be found in the Interactive Drug Analysis Profiles on the Yellow Card website, which is available at the following link:

https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/idaps

The Interactive Drug Analysis Profiles contain complete listings of suspected adverse reactions for all medicines and vaccines reported through the scheme. On this platform, individuals can search for the specified vaccine of interest in order to find data displayed in graphs and tables, which include information such as patient age, sex and ethnicity. The number of reports for each vaccine of interest is provided on the “Overview” tab of the profile. As the data does not necessarily refer to proven side effects, individuals should refer to the product information for details on the possible side effects, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc

When considering spontaneous data for medicinal products, it is important to be aware that a reported reaction has not necessarily been caused by the vaccine, only that the reporter had a suspicion it may have been. Each year, millions of doses of routine vaccinations are given in the United Kingdom alone, and when any vaccine is administered to large numbers of people, some recipients will inevitably experience illness following vaccination. The fact that symptoms occur after the use of a vaccine or medicine, and are reported via the Yellow Card scheme, does not in itself mean that they are proven to have been caused by it. Underlying or concurrent illnesses may be responsible, and such events can also be coincidental.

It is also important to note that the number of reports received via the Yellow Card scheme does not directly equate to the number of people who suffer adverse reactions, and therefore the reports cannot be used to determine the incidence of a reaction. Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) reporting rates are influenced by the seriousness of the ADRs, their ease of recognition, and the extent of the use of a particular vaccine. They may also be stimulated by awareness and publicity about a vaccine. Reporting tends to be highest for newly introduced medicines during the first one to two years on the market, and then falls over time.