Covid Vaccine And Hypersensitivity Warnings

Ingredient In Pfizer COVID Vaccine That Likely Caused Life-Threatening Reaction In Two UK Healthcare Workers

Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN

On Dec. 2, Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) became the first in the world to approve a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech and Pfizer.

A mass vaccination campaign that targeted frontline workers to receive the vaccine began on Dec. 8. Within 24 hours of launching the campaign, MHRA acknowledged two reports of anaphylaxis and one report of a possible allergic reaction.

Reuters reported late yesterday afternoon that an investigation into the anaphylactic reactions by MHRA has identified polyethylene glycol, or PEG, as the likely culprit.

Imperial College London’s Paul Turner, an expert in allergy and immunology who has been advising the MHRA on its revised guidance, told Reuters:

“The ingredients like PEG which we think might be responsible for the reactions are not related to things which can cause food allergy. Likewise, people with a known allergy to just one medicine should not be at risk.”

COVID mRNA vaccines are not the only vehicle for PEG involvement in COVID-19 vaccine production. Researchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute report developing a process for COVID-19 vaccine production to purify virus particles at “high yield.”

The process involves adding PEG to a virus-containing liquid and passing the liquid through membranes.

On Sept. 25, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman and chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), notified the Steven Hahn, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Peter Marks director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of the serious and possibly life-threatening anaphylactic potential of PEG.

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