Taking reports of side effects now the vaccines have been given to over 40 million people is fraught with difficulty, as there is no longer a placebo group to compare to. Anyone who has a serious medical problem after the vaccine will likely be reported to the FDA but that does not mean that the vaccine caused the stoke or heart attacks or whatever. The frequency of adverse reaction the FDA reports in post marketing studies are reflective of whatever reports they receive.
30,000 people were in both of the Pfizer and Moderna studies which is a huge number. It is large enough to give us confidence that the most serious side effects would show up, and could be compared to their frequency in the placebo group.
I would suggest people who are interested read the original FDA data both Moderna and Pfizer submitted. You can quickly go to the section on side effects and see the actual data that compares the vaccine recipients to their placebo counterparts. The tables are clear and easy to follow.
Here is Moderna
https://www.fda.gov/media/144434/downloadThe text for "deaths" follows.
"Serious Adverse Events Deaths As of December 3, 2020,
13 deaths were reported (6 vaccine, 7 placebo). Two deaths in the vaccine group were in participants >75 years of age with pre-existing cardiac disease; one participant died of cardiopulmonary arrest 2
1 days after dose
1, and one participant died of myocardial infarction 45 days after dose 2. Another two vaccine recipients were found deceased at home, and the cause of these deaths is uncertain: a 70-year-old participant with cardiac disease was found deceased 57 days after dose 2, and a 56-year-old participant with hypertension, chronic back pain being treated with opioid medication died 37 days after dose
1 (The official cause of death was listed as head trauma). One case was a 72-year-old vaccine recipient with Crohn’s disease and short bowel syndrome who was hospitalized for thrombocytopenia and acute kidney failure due to obstructive nephrolithiasis 40 days after dose 2 and developed complications resulting in multiorgan failure and death. One vaccine recipient died of suicide 2
1 days after dose
1. The placebo recipients died from myocardial infarction (n=3), intra-abdominal perforation (n=
1), systemic inflammatory response syndrome in the setting of known malignancy (n=
1), COVID-
19 (n=
1), and unknown cause (n=
1). These deaths represent events and rates that occur in the general population of individuals in these age groups.
Non-fatal Serious Adverse Events Among participants who received at least one dose of vaccine or placebo (N=30,35
1), the proportion of participants who reported at least one SAE from dose
1 to the primary analysis cutoff date (November 25, 2020) was
1% in the mRNA-
1273 group and
1% in the placebo group. The most common SAEs occurring at higher rates in the vaccine group than the placebo group were myocardial infarction (0.03% in vaccine group, 5 cases vs. 3 cases in placebo group), cholecystitis (0.02% in vaccine group, 3 cases vs. 0 cases in placebo group), and nephrolithiasis (0.02% in vaccine group, 3 cases vs. 0 cases in placebo group). The small numbers of cases of these events do not suggest a causal relationship. The most common SAEs occurring at higher rates in the placebo arm than the vaccine arm, aside from COVID-
19 (0.
1% in placebo group), were pneumonia (0.05% in placebo group) and pulmonary embolism (0.03% in placebo group). Occurrence of other SAEs, including cardiovascular SAEs, were otherwise balanced between treatment groups. "
I think it is fair to say these vaccines are very safe, and at least so far, very very effective
