Dr. Fauci Says Anyone With a "History of a Severe Allergic Reaction" Should Not Take it At This Time

 

Dr. Fauci Says Anyone With a "History of a Severe Allergic Reaction" Should Not Take it At This Time

First of all, Dr. Fauci says the side effects are usually not severe at all. "Generally, the most common reaction is what you see with most, any other vaccine: a sore arm, a little bit, you might feel a little bit fatigued and down for 24 hours to 36 hours at the most; a small percentage of the people might get a fever that would last for 24 hours. You take a Tylenol, you can take care of that without much problem, with the safety of severe adverse events is really very good. And the 30,000 people in the Moderna trial and the 44,000 people in the Pfizer trial, there were really no severe adverse events."

In the U.K., where the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been available since last week, two medical workers who have a history of extreme allergic reactions had an adverse reaction after receiving the new vaccine. Each of them demonstrated symptoms of anaphylactoid reaction, leading U.K. authorities to advise anyone with that condition to not take the vaccine. Fauci was asked if he agrees with that directive.

"I do. I do," he said. "We are very carefully monitoring these things. And when we see something like an allergic reaction, you modify the recommendation and you say that someone who has a history of a severe allergic reaction, that those individuals don't get vaccinated now with this product, or if they do get vaccinated, they do it in a location that has the capability of responding to an allergic reaction. You just don't want to go and get in a place that has no capability."

Officially, the FDA says "you should not get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine if you: 

• had a severe allergic reaction after a previous dose of this vaccine 
• had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient of this vaccine."

So what's in the vaccine? Says the FDA: "The Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine includes the following ingredients: mRNA, lipids ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), 2 [(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3- phosphocholine, and cholesterol), potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and sucrose."