Stroke Risk: Covid Shots 200 Times More Likely to Cause Blood Clots in Brain

(The Defender)—The COVID-19 vaccines carry a much higher risk of blood clots in the brain compared with other vaccines, according to a new study by Dr. Peter McCullough and colleagues.

The researchers looked at reports in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from January 1990 through December 2023.

They counted the number of cerebral thromboembolism events — as in, blood clots of the brain’s veins or arteries — reported in people who received a COVID-19 shot compared with those who received a flu shot or other vaccines.

Blood clots that block blood flow to the brain account for roughly 87% of all strokes, according to the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association.

McCullough — a cardiologist with over 1,000 publications and over 685 citations in the National Library of Medicine — told The Defender the study showed “an unacceptable risk of catastrophic thrombotic injuries to the brain” in individuals who took one or more COVID-19 shots.

McCullough summarized the study’s results on Substack:

“Compared to influenza vaccines given over 34 years, COVID-19 vaccines in 36 months of use had over 1000-fold increased risk of most blood clot events, and compared to all vaccines combined administered over 34 years, this risk remained at over 200-times greater with COVID-19 vaccination.”

Prior research has suggested that the spike protein in both the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19 vaccine can cause serious blood clotting, McCullough and his co-authors noted in their report.

Blood clots in the brain are difficult to treat, McCullough told The Defender, and “oftentimes leave patients with devastating disabilities.”

“This and other sources of data,” he added, “support calls to remove all COVID-19 vaccines from public use.”

The study — co-authored with Claire Rogers, Dr. James Thorp and Kirstin Cosgrove — is under peer review and available online as a preprint.

Women especially at risk

For the study, McCullough and his co-authors used 12 search terms to find VAERS reports of adverse events related to blood clots in the brain: cavernous sinus thrombosis, cerebral artery thrombosis, cerebral infarction, cerebral thrombosis, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, cerebral venous thrombosis, embolic cerebral infarction, ischaemic cerebral infarction, sigmoid sinus thrombosis, superior sagittal sinus thrombosis, thrombotic cerebral infarction and transverse sinus thrombosis.

In the three years since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, they found 5,137 reports of a brain blood clot event in those who received one or more COVID-19 shots.

Meanwhile, VAERS data showed only 52 reports since 1990 of a brain blood clot event following a flu vaccine and 282 since 1990 following all other vaccinations, they said.

The actual number of events may be higher due to underreporting in VAERS, they said, for several reasons.

First, CDC staff may have “tremendous difficulty” in processing the reports due to an overwhelming increase in VAERS reports since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Also, clinicians may not have the necessary awareness and knowledge to recognize injuries as being vaccine-related and thus may not report them in VAERS.

Moreover, they added, “The VAERS database is well known for its difficulty in entering events, making it even more challenging for healthcare workers to submit each event with limited time in a hospital or clinic setting.”

The authors said their findings are especially concerning for women of reproductive age — who are particularly at risk for certain blood clotting events in the brain, such as cerebral venous thrombosis.

The American Heart Association said in a Jan. 29 review article that roughly two-thirds of all cerebral venous thrombosis cases occurred in women of reproductive age.

Given this reality, the study’s authors called for “an immediate global moratorium on the use of COVID-19 vaccines … with an absolute contraindication in women of reproductive age.”

CDC: no plan to change COVID vaccine recommendations

The Defender asked the CDC if it planned to alter its COVID-19 vaccination recommendations in light of McCullough and his co-authors’ findings.

A CDC spokesperson told The Defender, the “CDC does not comment on findings or claims by individuals or organizations outside of CDC. Current CDC recommendations can be found here.”

The CDC has found the COVID-19 vaccines to be safe and effective, the spokesperson said. “The CDC continues to encourage Americans to get vaccinated, as the COVID-19 vaccination continues to be the best way to protect against serious illness.”

When asked specifically about the risks of COVID-19 vaccination for women of reproductive age, the CDC spokesperson directed The Defender to the CDC’s webpage COVID-19 Vaccines While Pregnant or Breastfeeding, which states that the vaccines are safe and effective.