Claim About Side Effects in Kids Who Got Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine Is Misleading!

The claim about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is misleading, as the reported effect was pain and local reactions.

The figure claiming that 86 percent of children who got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reported adverse reactions is misleading as the actual reported effects were local reactions or pain at the injection site. 

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

Social media users are sharing posts showing screenshots of news articles related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

• The screenshots show headlines such as "86% of Children Suffered an Adverse Reaction to the Pfizer Covid Vaccine in Clinical Trial" and several articles on Kejriwal supporting the vaccine's use in India.

The claim: Users are sharing the screenshots in question to claim that Kejriwal was batting for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in India despite the government not buying it, sharing it with an article claiming that a majority of the children who received the vaccine suffered adverse reactions.

An archive of this tweet can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

(Archives of more claims can be seen here, here and here.)

But...?: The figure of 86 percent of children suffering adverse reactions is true, but it is also misleading.

• As per the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 86.2 percent of American children who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine between ages five and 11 reported local reactions (such as itching, pain, redness, and swelling) after vaccination.

• Similarly, the National Center for Biotechnology Information's (NCBI) website shows that 79 to 86 percent of children between 12 and 18 "reported pain at injection site" in Saudi Arabia.

• While it is true that Kejriwal was vocal about making Pfizer's vaccine available to Indian children back in May 2021, the Indian government never actually bought Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for Indian citizens.

How did we find out?: First, we used keywords to look for the article which provides figures for children suffering from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine's adverse effects.

• This led us to a website called theleadingreport.com which carried this article. The report provided a link to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fact-sheet on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which has now been taken down.

• However, it included a table from the fact-sheet, which showed that 86.2 percent of children between 12 and 15 reported pain at the injection site after the first dose.

• This percentage dropped to 78.9 percent of children reporting pain after the second dose.

• The same figures were also available on Pfizer's website.

The website carried information from the FDA's website, which tallies with figures available on Pfizer's website.

(Source: Pfizer/Screenshot)

CDC, NCBI reports specify "adverse effects": We then looked for more information about the effects of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine among children, which took us to reports on the websites of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

• According to the CDC's report, which looked at the Pfizer vaccine's effects on children between the ages of five and 11 years in the USA, 86.2 of them reported local and mostly mild reactions after taking the vaccine.

• This data matches the figures from the table in the viral article.

The report says that 86.2 percent children reported local reactions.

(Source: CDC/Altered by The Quint)

The NCBI too published a report on the vaccine's effects of children aged between 12 and 18 in Saudi Arabia.

• It mentioned that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine showed 100 percent efficacy in adolescents between 12 and 15 years of age, of which "79 to 86% of participants" reported "injection-site pain."

As per NCBI, 79 to 86 percent of the children who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reported injection-site pain.

(Source: NCBI/Altered by The Quint)

Did Kejriwal push for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in India?: Yes. We found several news reports on the Delhi Chief Minister urging the Centre to make Pfizer's vaccine available to children in India.

(Swipe right to view screenshots of reports by The Economic Times, Mint and India Today.)

The Economic Times published an article about Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal speaking about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in May 2021.

Pfizer and Moderna had refused to send vaccines directly to the Delhi governmnt.

Both Pfizer and Moderna had refused to sell vaccines to private parties or states during the pandemic.

We also came across Kejriwal's tweet, which quote-tweeted a NDTV report, as well as Delhi's Deputy CM Manish Sisodia's tweets supporting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had said that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should be procured for "our children."

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The Indian government had refused to by COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer in September 2021, reported Reuters.

• As per the report, the refusal stemmed from two reasons, the first being that India had a domestic supply of more affordable and easier-to-store vaccine options.

• The Indian government had also declined any legal protection to the manufacturers when it came to litigation related to their side-effects, it added.

Conclusion: While 86 percent of children who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine did report adverse effects, the claim is misleading as the "adverse effect" which was reported were local reactions or pain at the site of the injection.

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