The MHRA Papers - Part 12

Logic

SUMMARY: Logic should be part of the curriculum for anyone in a responsible position. Meeting minutes (secret or not) should be checked and approved before the next meeting.

We continue reviewing the minutes of the 15 February 2021 meeting of the MHRA’s ​​Commission On Human Medicines (CHM) COVID-19 Vaccines Benefit Risk Expert Working Group. 

The meeting topics were an update on Impact Surveillance, an update on SIREN, Cohort analysis within the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Database, the SARI-Watch surveillance system, a Safety update on the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, and a Review of fatal reports for the Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines.

We will not detail the content as we found two incompatible statements in the minutes that left us perplexed:

“It was noted that there was significant under reporting of fatalities to the Yellow Card Scheme and that there can be difficulty in interpreting the data where reports are sparse”.

AND

“The EWG agre…