False posts about 'Pfizer Covid jab side effects' resurface online

"Pfizer has released a list of serious side effects totalling 1,291 for its vaccine. The company had attempted to hide this information for at least 75 years in its laboratory!" reads part of a Naver Blog post written in Korean shared on December 5, 2023.

It goes on to provide a long list of various illnesses, including myocarditis, pneumonia and death.

The blog links to a Spanish-language X post making the same claim alongside a link to a February 11, 2023 article in the Argentinian newspaper El Cronista, which claims a "report states that 1,291 side effects are detected in patients inoculated with Pfizer's Covid-19 shots".

The X post has been shared more than 2,000 times.

Image

Screenshot of the Naver Blog post, taken on December 19, 2023

According to Our World In Data, a global database collated by Oxford University-based researchers, 70.6 percent of the world population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine (archived link).

Global health authorities, including the World Health Organization (WHO), have monitored the safety of the shot, and independent scientists say the benefits of the jab outweigh the risks (archived links here, here and here).

Despite this, misinformation about the vaccines that helped stem pandemic deaths have spread across social media.

The false claims about side effects of Pfizer's vaccines first surfaced in 2022 and have since been shared repeatedly on Naver Cafe, Naver Blog, Facebook and on X here and here.

Similar claims were included in reports by media outlets such as The Epoch Times -- which AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation about vaccines -- as well as South Korean online media outlets such as Finance Today, News Town and Media CCBB.

The claims also spread in multiple languages including French, German, Serbian and Dutch.

However, the list of "side effects" are not all linked to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

'Pfizer documents'

The list circulating on social media corresponds to a document released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from the nonprofit group Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) for its full data on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine approval in August 2021 (archived links here and here).

Initially, the FDA planned to release 500 pages per month, meaning it would take 75 years to fulfil the 330,000-page FOIA request. In January 2022, a Texas judge ordered the FDA to release the documents at the rate of "more than 12,000 pages" on or before January 31, followed by "55,000 pages every 30 days" starting on or before March 1 (archived link).

As of December 27, 2023, PHMPT has made 2,587 sets of documents available for download (archived link).

The "dangerous side effects" can be seen in one of the documents available on the PHMPT website since November 2021 (archived link).

It details "adverse events of special interest" -- but Aurélie Grandvuillemin, deputy head of the Burgundy Regional Pharmacovigilance Center told AFP: "This is in no way a list of the adverse effects reported from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine."

These are in fact conditions that need to be carefully monitored for reasons including their association with previous vaccines or medical history (archived link). The list includes symptoms reported following vaccination for which no causal association has been proven.

Image

Screenshot of the Pfizer document taken on December 21, 2023, and highlighted by AFP

Severe side effects

Health authorities including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the WHO state severe side effects from Covid-19 vaccines are rare (archived links here and here).

Pfizer has publicly recognised myocarditis and pericarditis -- inflammation of parts of the heart -- as side effects of its Covid-19 vaccines in press releases from November 2021, January 2022 and October 2023 (archived links here, here and here).

However, many large studies have shown that the overall risk of myocarditis is substantially higher after a Covid-19 infection than after vaccination (archived link).

Glen Pyle, a professor of molecular cardiology at Canada's University of Guelph, and Jennifer Huang, associate professor of paediatric cardiology at Oregon Health and Science University in the United States, noted in a January 2022 article in The Conversation: "In cases of myocarditis following Covid-19 vaccination, the vast majority of cases are mild and resolve quickly" (archived link).

In South Korea, health authorities have recognised rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA vaccinations.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced compensation for cases involving post-vaccination myocarditis on March 14, 2022 and pericarditis on May 26, 2022.

It added that there was "no meaningful rise in total deaths" resulting from Covid-19 vaccinations.

AFP's other reporting about Covid-19 vaccine misinformation can be seen here.