Original article (in Serbian) was published on 25/11/2022
The web portal Nulta tacka, known for spreading anti-vaxxer narrative, published an article titled “Study: One in every 500 young children who received the Pfizer vaccine was hospitalised”. The title, however, is manipulative – the study does exist, but it stated that out of 7,806 observed children under the age of five, ten were hospitalised, and only those children who received a dose higher than three micrograms, as prescribed for their age.
This web portal states in the text that some children received a higher dose of the vaccine than prescribed. However, the title, devoid of context, leads to the wrong conclusion – that the vaccine is more dangerous than there is evidence for.
In a study published in October in the journal Jama, which collected data on children under the age of five who received the Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus, it is stated that higher doses of this vaccine were associated with a greater number of unwanted effects. Ten children had symptoms that required hospitalisation, but they were children who were given a higher dose than prescribed, i.e. five or ten micrograms. However, as many as three-quarters of them received higher doses, with the consent of their parents.
The study reminds that the Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus was only recently (in June 2022) approved for children under five years of age (more precisely, for children from six months to four years) by the US Food and Drug Administration, but only in a dose of three micrograms which is safe for them.
“The dose of three micrograms was carefully selected as the preferred dose for children under the age of five, based on data on safety, tolerability and immunogenicity”, the Pfizer company stated in June.
As stated in the study, the greatest number of symptoms after children’s vaccinations were “minimally serious” and did not require a day’s absence from school or kindergarten. The symptoms mainly included redness, pain and swelling at the injection site, fever, body weakness, vomiting, cough, and redness of the mucous membrane of the throat. No vaccinated child died, and no serious side effects were reported in those given the prescribed dose.
The text on the web portal Nulta tacka is a literal translation of the text from the British site The Daily Sceptic from October of this year. The site was founded in April 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, and according to the founders, it was created as a platform where all disaffected scientists, non-scientists and journalists who are “not allowed” to express these views elsewhere can express their views. In other words, they gather all the sceptics who doubt official science.
As assessed by the Media Bias web portal, which determines the bias of various websites, it is a web portal that cannot be considered a credible source because fact-checkers around the world have repeatedly proven that it spreads incorrect or manipulative claims, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories regarding the coronavirus, vaccination and other topics.
Raskrikavanje has repeatedly recorded the manipulations of the web portal Nulta tacka, especially in connection with vaccines and the coronavirus. For example, they incorrectly wrote that vaccines cause cancer or change DNA and that vaccination is the reason for the “hepatitis epidemic” among children.
