A London Coroner’s Court has ruled that the blood clot that killed British psychologist Stephen Wright in January 2021 was linked to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is not approved for use in the United States.
Wright, 32, died 10 days after receiving his first dose of the vaccine, according to the BBC.
“Dr. Wright was a fit and healthy man who had the AstraZeneca COVID vaccination on 16 January 2021, awoke with a headache on the 25th and later developed left arm numbness,” coroner Andrew Harris said in his ruling, according to Fox News. “He attended an emergency department just after midnight, where he was found to have high blood pressure and a sagittal sinus venous thrombosis.”
“He was transferred to King’s College Hospital at 6:39 am but, because of the extent of the bleed and very low platelets, was unfit for surgery, dying at 6:33 pm. My conclusion as to the cause of death is unintended complications of vaccination,” he ruled.
Harris called the case “very unusual and deeply tragic,” the BBC reported.
Harris’s ruling ended a battle on the part of Charlotte Wright, the psychologist’s widow, to change her husband’s death certificate, which currently has the cause of death as “natural causes.” Charlotte Wright is currently suing AstraZeneca.
“It was made clear that Stephen was [previously] fit and healthy and that his death was by vaccination of AstraZeneca. For us, it allows us to be able to continue our litigation against AstraZeneca. This is the written proof,” she said.
“Even with people in my life, there were questions and queries about whether I was actually telling the truth, so two years later, I can finally say it is the truth,” she said.
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She said the ruling is not the end of her battle.
“It provides relief, but it doesn’t provide closure. I think we’re only going to get that when we have an answer from AstraZeneca and the government,” she said.
However, in his ruling, Harris said that it was “very important to record as fact that it is the AstraZeneca vaccine — but that is different from blaming AstraZeneca.”
Wright noted that her husband was a believer in the vaccine.
“Being in the profession he was in, I truly believe that if he had been told all of the possible reactions, he would have still taken [the vaccine] because I am aware it is a rare situation,” she said.
Some experts said the case did not alter their view that the vaccines are safe and effective.
“It’s really quite rare and, at the end of the day, you need to consider the risks versus the benefits with anything you do. And when you look at the vaccines, they’re very safe and very effective,” said Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, according to The New York Times.
“Nothing is risk-free. And if you choose not to get the vaccine, then you’re at greater risk for getting the disease and serious consequences,” he said.
Dr. Beverley Hunt, a thrombosis expert in London, said that the syndrome that affected Wright takes place in one out of 50,000 people under 40 and one in 100,000 people over 40.
Dr. Adam Finn, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Bristol, said that in Britain there have been about 200 cases of the blood clotting syndrome that affected Wright out of about 50 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine and 40 deaths.
Three months after Wright’s death, Britain sought to limit the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in people under 30 due to fears of rare blood clots linked to the vaccine.
