Poilievre kicked out of Commons after calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ‘wacko’ AstraZeneca admits its Covid vaccine ‘could cause blood clots in rare cases’
OTTAWA - Testy exchanges between the prime minister and his chief opponent ended with the Opposition leader and one of his MPs being ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday -- and the rest of Conservative caucus walking out of the chamber in protest. The unusually tense events saw Speaker Greg Fergus caution both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to rephrase their comments to avoid making direct accusations about the character of another MP. Fergus issued a warning to Poilievre after he referred to Trudeau as “the guy who spent the first half of his adult life as a practising racist,” referring to photos that emerged during the 2019 election of Trudeau dressed in black and brown face. Fergus warned Trudeau after he said Poilievre was “showing us exactly what shameful, spineless leadership looks like,” and accused him of shaking hands with “white nationalists.” The tense backand-forth came as Poilievre and the Conservatives were attacking the Liberals for having allowed British Columbia to allow the decriminalization of hard drugs like heroin and fentanyl in public places, which the provincial NDP government is now
ASTRAZENECA, the pharmaceutical giant which virtually became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic, has admitted that its Covishield vaccine could cause rare side effects, including blood clots and low platelet count. The pharma giant is being sued in a class action over claims that its vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death
and serious injury in dozens of cases. “It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS (Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome). The causal mechanism is not known,” the company said in court documents, The Telegraph reported. Covishield was developed by the BritishSwedish company in collaboration with Oxford University, and produced by the Serum Institute of India. It was widely administered in over 150 countries. Some studies conducted during the pandemic found the vaccine was 60 to 80 per cent effective in protecting against the novel coronavirus, according to The Independent. But one of the complainants alleged that the vaccine caused him a permanent brain injury after he developed a blood clot, preventing him from working. While the company has contested these claims, the court submission marks the first time it has admitted that the vaccine can cause sideeffects that are characterised by blood clots and a low blood platelet count in humans. “Further, TTS can also occur in the absence of the AZ vaccine (or any vaccine). Causation in any individual case will be a matter for expert evidence,” it added. The admission by AstraZeneca runs counter to the company’s insistence in 2023 that it would “not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level”, according to The Independent. Scientists first identified a link between the vaccine and a new illness called vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) in March 2021.
The UK government has indemnified AstraZeneca against any legal action but has so far refused to intervene, according to The Telegraph.According to the Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences, “very rare” side effects are those reported in less than 1 in 10,000 cases.