Republicans may be more likely to understand and report side effects after COVID shots, adding serious adverse events (AEs), the results of a cross-sectional study suggest.
Based on knowledge of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and voting patterns from 2020, the researchers showed that a 10% increase in voting for former President Donald Trump in the state was linked to an increased likelihood of AE reports after vaccination (P<0. 001 for all):
However, the same voting patterns showed none of those associations when it came to reports of AEs after flu vaccination, according to David Asch, MD, MBA, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues at JAMA Network Open.
Previous reports have shown that counties that voted for Trump in 2020 had lower COVID vaccination rates and higher COVID-related death rates, they noted, but no studies have proven the link between voting patterns and reports of EAs.
Although the voluntary nature of patient and physician reports to VAERS creates a significant threat of bias, this weakness becomes a strength when attempting to examine belief about AEs and the motivation to report them, the authors said.
“Without a credible explanation for why vaccinated Americans and their doctors in Republican-leaning states will objectively find other rates of vaccine AEs than Democratic-leaning states, or have other talents to report them, the differences in reporting of those AEs will reflect the product of how those AEs are perceived and the propensity to report them,” Asch and his colleagues wrote.
Anti-vaccine sentiment has increasingly been linked to conservative politics in recent years, taking the form of questioning the efficacy or protection of vaccines, they said, and existing findings suggest that Republicans are more likely to understand or report on those concerns about protection. On the other hand, Democrats would probably be less likely to do so.
“The agreement between trust and trust goes both ways,” the researchers wrote. “The adage ‘seeing is believing’ acknowledges that our individual experiences express our sense of truth, and ‘believing to see’ recognizes that our preconceptions modulate what we enjoy. First of all. “
Asch’s organization evaluated VAERS knowledge for reports similar to COVID-19 (2020-2022) or influenza (2019-2022) vaccines for adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. AEs similar to administrative or garage errors were excluded from the analysis. Severe AEs were those described as life-threatening or life-threatening, or resulting in emergency room visits, hospitalization, or disability.
For COVID vaccines, 68,519 out of a total of 620,456 RAs were reported as severe (it should be noted that other people may report this multiple times to VAERS). Indiana had the highest rate of AE reports (about 25 per 10,000 vaccinated), while Michigan, Montana, Kentucky, and Minnesota had the highest rates of reporting severe AEs (ranging from about four to five per 10,000 vaccinated). The last four states also had the highest proportions of reports of severe AEs for COVID vaccines.
Of the 12,620 reports of influenza vaccine-related RA, 709 were severe. VAERS reports for COVID and flu vaccines, respectively, were for people with an average age of 52 and 56, while 70% and 75% referred to women.
One limitation is that voting and reporting on AEs are done through individuals, whereas the existing exam had to rely on state-level knowledge for either. But one of the strengths, according to Asch and his co-authors, is that the effects held up. sensitivity analyses that took into account the heterogeneity of the population.
Ian Ingram is the editor-in-chief of MedPage Today and helps cover oncology for the site.
No investment examined was reported.
Asch and his co-authors did not make any disclosures.