A trip to Limerick Vax Clinic
A look back to August 2021: “Just Google Pfizer.com and Pregnancy”
On August 6 2021 I went to the Vaccination Clinic at Limerick Racecourse.
It took a little manoeuvring to get past first, security and second, the team of a dozen people looking for my PPS number and personal details at a table under a marquee outside. A plethora of steel fencing was erected to mark out a convoluted way to reach the entrance to the building. Inside, there was around forty staff. Other than staff, the clinic was completely deserted.
Once I let staff know that I wasn’t getting vaccinated today, but that I had questions around safety, particularly in connection with fertility, they showed me through to a vaccination booth and the vaccinator (a paramedic in his early twenties) and a nurse (in her mid-thirties) sat down to talk to me.
They were warm, well intentioned, patient and friendly. But ultimately, ill-equipped to answer.
V =Vaccinator (a paramedic)
Nurse = Vaccination Clinic nursing staff
LR = Louise Roseingrave
LR: Did they do clinical trials on pregnant women?
V: They do, they have. Sixty per cent of people get flu like symptoms and it passes, those flu like symptoms are representative of an immune response so it’s kind of very generalised.
LR: Okay because I know someone who got a clot in their kidney post vaccine.
V: Our summary for Pfizer doesn’t include clotting effects or anything that affects the circulatory system.
LR: Ok so you don’t mention those as risks?
V: Yeah, no we wouldn’t. In the phase three clinical trials that incorporated thousands of people, it wasn’t seen. In Janssen and Astra Zeneca it was seen and that is one of the side effects, rare side effects albeit.
LR: Did they do clinical trials on pregnant women?
V: They do, they have. I suppose there is advocacy over pregnant people getting the vaccine and it is safe.
LR: Okay they did do clinical trials so I can look up the results?
Nurse: I can look it up now for you hold on.
V: There was actually advice from Obstetrics Ireland, the consultants. They advised pregnant people to be vaccinated as well.
LR: Are those clinical trials finished? What were the results?
Both: Yeah.
Nurse: Those are the most up to date that we would have at the minute I’ll see if I can get them here. Trials (googling Pfizer trials)
LR: So when people say those trials don’t finish until 2023 is that true?
Nurse: These are the trials we have at the minute; we are only going off what we know at the minute.
LR: Does that mean the trials are ongoing?
Both: Yeah.
Nurse: We started vaccinating in early March and we have learned so much. We are learning all the time about the different vaccines.
LR: Okay. And are you getting feedback?
Nurse: People do have side effects. All medicines have side effects.
LR: They all have effects.
Nurse: Everything that we take. I can put my hand up and say I was hesitant in January because I thought God, this is very, very new.
V: I was (hesitant) too.
Nurse: I was working on a covid ward at the time and I was still hesitant in getting it. But looking at it now, I suppose we are getting lives back some, do you know what I mean? That was my rationale. Looking at it now, what I wanted and what I got. (For me it was) I’m sick of this. I’d worked on a covid ward this last year and I am done. I’d had enough of it. And that’s the reason I took it.
LR: Okay. More so than for health reasons then is it?
Nurse: Well I was more high risk of getting covid as well. We were looking after high risk covid patients. And I didn’t get covid in that length of time.
LR: Well that’s amazing. What are the benefits of getting this vaccine?
Nurse: It’s to keep you out of hospital. You can be symptomatic. They still feel that we can transmit it but the risk is that our transmission would be an awful lot lower. So if we were tested and we came back positive, our viral load should be an awful lot lower than somebody who’s not vaccinated. Your viral load means that you’re spreading it another person that’s not vaccinated and that’s how people start to get sick.
LR: Okay. And by my viral load you mean when I feel physically ill is it?
Nurse: Not necessarily. You can be asymptomatic without carrying a high viral load.
LR: Ok Gosh. And how do you ever know about that?
Nurse: You don’t unless you are tested. So it’ll come back on the strength of your swab. You can have somebody who is a weak positive. And a weak positive is a very, very low transmission.
LR: And you can tell that from the PCR?
V: (who worked previously in PCR swabbing) Yeah you can tell, so if you’ve had it (covid) in the past, you can date these tests as well. So if you have been positive before and they swab you again, they will know if it’s an historical positive.
LR: They will? Maybe I should do that then so then I’ll have the antibodies and I won’t have to worry (about vaccine side effects).
V: The HSE won’t do that for you.
LR: Oh.
Nurse: Because they won’t know in, is it six months?
V: A blood test might be more accurate but again, you know…
Nurse: *finds Pfizer Biontech Clinical Trial Results on Google*
“This is in pregnant women, they looked at. It’s on Pfizer.com. Clinical Trial To Evaluate Covid 19 Vaccine in Pregnant Women. So just go into Pfizer.com. Just google Pfizer.com and pregnancy. Now that was February. Let’s see do they have a more up to date one.”
LR. Okay thanks. I was looking at this yesterday. Antibody dependent enhancement. I’m worried this vaccine is going to affect my ability to fight another disease.
Nurse: To be honest, that I’d say is above even my knowledge of vaccines personally and I think you’d definitely need to speak to….even your GP to start with. They would know more about that. At the end of the day we know so much in the information we give but when it comes to things like that, it’s very specific. Our Consultant, Dr Molloy, she’s had something thrown at her in the last week and she’s had to go research it. Someone pulled this question out and she didn’t know. So she physically had to go find out and she came back to us a few days later to say that. So we don’t know the answers to everything.
LR: Okay.
V: It’s a personal choice for yourself. So I suppose you need to ask the questions if you want to know the answers. Your GP is probably a good place to start.
Nurse: (reading from Pfizer website) So pregnancy and getting a covid vax this is what they are saying here
‘You should get a vaccine to protect yourself from the virus if you are pregnant, trying for a baby or might get pregnant in the future or are breastfeeding’
‘Most pregnant women who get the virus there’ll be mild/moderate symptoms…
‘You’re more likely to get unwell and be treated in intensive care than people who are vaccinated‘ is what they’re saying.
‘Covid vaccines are safe for you and your baby and protect you from getting unwell.’
V: The general advice I suppose it getting the vaccine is ultimately better because it’s safer for you and the baby should you get covid 19, you could get really sick from it. That’s the general advice. I suppose if there are specific concerns you have, it’s better you go to your GP than us.
LR: Okay well yeah I’d like to know if it is going to affect my ability to get pregnant because nobody really knows.
Nurse: Even if having children wasn’t a thing. None of us know down the line what em…
LR: How we are going to be affected?
Nurse: Exactly, down the line. But by the looks of it, from listening to what we hear, this is going to be an annual thing, it’s going to be like the flu. They are talking about possibly giving a flu jab in one arm and a covid jab in another arm.
LR: Oh my God. We’ll be full of God knows what. It’s a worry. When you say things like that, I think of a 20 year old, we don’t know what’s happening to a 20 year old’s fertility.
Nurse: “We’ve had 16 year olds. We have kids coming in with their parents and they want to be vaccinated. They want to go back to school. I don’t think any parents really, have asked about that. But anyway at 16 they can give their own consent.
V: I got my vaccine at 21.
LR: Gosh, are you not worried?
Nurse: I don’t have children but I didn’t even think about it. I’ve seen it full circle. On the wards. It was either that or get covid and I didn’t want to get covid so and I genuinely didn’t think about it.
LR: Did you see people suffering very badly with covid?
Nurse: Oh yeah. We’ve seen people with long covid. People who still have a shortness of breath or general weakness. But I suppose we have come a long way. There is going to be more clinical trials done, there’s new vaccines coming on stream.
You can go and talk to your GP, your GP can always refer you in here to talk to Dr Molloy, she’s the Respiratory Consultant, she’s our clinical lead here so anyone that we would have concerns about or feel should not be vaccinated here or should be done in UHL, those types of queries.
LR: Thank you so much.
Nurse: We can only give you the information we have. But you can ask your GP. It’s very new to everybody but we’ve had so many people come in here who were trying to get pregnant, who got the vaccine and then got pregnant.
LR: So you haven’t seen anything I should be worried about?
Nurse: If you want to read up the HPRA, the side effects and that, but only look at Pfizer because that’s what you’ll be getting.
V: There’s no point looking at Astra Zeneca and the clots because you won’t be getting that.
LR: Are you not giving out Astra Zeneca anymore no? Okay. Why? Is it because of the clots?
Both: No, no.
Nurse: It was because em, there was an age cap put on it. Now unless someone came in and they are allergic to the components of Pfizer or Moderna, they would have to get Astra Zeneca. There’d have to be a clinical reason for it. But at the moment it’s all mRNA’s we are using.”
LR: What are the components of Pfizer?
V: There’s a PEG in it. Polyethylene Glycol. It’s all in that book (vaccine information book) PEG is a common constitute in most medicines.
LR: Okay that’s the carrier is it? And then there’s the mRNA?
Both: Yeah
LR: Anything else?
V: No you should be fine, if you have any burning question your GP can escalate it to Dr Molloy. Someone will have the answer for you. Is that okay?
The nurse and the vaccinator then show me to the door and I thank them for their time.
*Warm thanks to those that continue to support my work, it is much appreciated.
Wow! So much to parse there. Worth 10 more posts at least. Great questions and follow-ups. Uber-polite but incisive. Just like Lieutenant Columbo. Trench coat, glass eye and cigar are optional. But it does go to show how wishful thinking can pervade medical profession once a few seeds of trust are sown early on based on thin air.
They really do not know , they are z( were) getting falsified info from those above them who in turn are getting the information from the manufacturers of the product ,