OTTAWA —
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube rolled up his sleeve for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine Thursday, a display of confidence in the injection that has recently been the focus of concerns over blood clots.
His public vaccination in Montreal came hours after the European Medicines Agency declared a review found no evidence the AstraZeneca shot raises the overall risk of blood clots.
“This is a safe and effective vaccine,” said Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency.
“Its benefits in protecting people from COVID-19, with the associated risks of death and hospitalization outweigh the possible risks. The committee also concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events or blood clots.”
However, Europe is adding a warning label to the vaccine because there isn’t any evidence yet to determine if it played any role in the development of rare blood clots in the brains of 18 patients who received it. Another seven patients who developed a rare condition that includes very low platelet counts and multiple small blood clots in veins throughout their body are also inconclusive, the agency said.
“The evidence we have is, at the moment, not sufficient to conclude with certainty whether these adverse events are indeed caused by the vaccine or not,” said Dr. Sabine Straus, chair of the agency’s Pharmacovigilance and Risk Assessment Committee.
She noted the cases were found in nearly 20 million vaccinations given in the United Kingdom, Europe and India.
The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency issued similar news earlier Thursday, saying it firmly believes the vaccine is safe and effective but is doing a more detailed study looking at blood clots in the brain.
Health Canada, which had officials at the European meeting Thursday morning, has not yet reacted to the decision, or said if it intends to add a warning label here.
Thrombosis Canada President Dr. James Douketis said the group’s leadership team was meeting Thursday evening to discuss the European findings and would have an updated statement for Canadians no later than Friday.
Last week Thrombosis Canada said there was no evidence linking the vaccine to blood clots and “strongly” recommended people get vaccinated.
Douketis, an internal medicine physician specializing in blood clots at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, said the number of incidents of blood clots has been very small, and he said COVID-19 can and does cause far more people to develop blood clots.
Vaccinations are likely preventing a lot of blood clots by preventing people from getting COVID-19, he said.
The first known report of a similar blood clot in Canada came Thursday, after a 79-year-old man in Quebec was admitted to hospital suffering from cerebral venous thrombosis, a blood clot in the vein that drains blood from the brain.
The patient received the AstraZeneca vaccine several days earlier.
Dube said authorities are looking into the case but there is no link at this time between the condition and getting the vaccine.
Earlier this week, Dr. Marc Berthiaume, the director of the medical sciences bureau at Health Canada, said the department had two reports of blood clots in patients who had received the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech.
Blood clots do occur naturally in some patients, and there has been no known link to vaccines before the COVID-19 outbreak.
More than 15 European countries had halted the use of AstraZeneca pending the EMA review. France, Germany and Italy all said they would resume those injections Friday.
Before Europe’s report was released Thursday, deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo said Canada believed the vaccine was safe and effective.
“The fact is that all four COVID-19 vaccines authorized by Health Canada meet our country’s high standards for safety, and provide a high degree of protection against severe illness and death related to COVID-19,” said Njoo.
Cooke said the warning label is not meant to advise people against getting the vaccine but to raise awareness so people who do get it are told what signs to look out for when it comes to blood clots.
“If it was me, I would be vaccinated tomorrow,” she said.
Cooke said there are thousands of people dying every day from COVID-19 and this vaccine is effective against the novel coronavirus.
Canadian provinces began administering 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week. Canada’s doses are not made in the same place as the European or U.K. doses.
Thrombosis Canada issued a statement March 11 saying in general vaccines are not linked to the development of blood clots and it had no evidence that the AstraZeneca vaccine was any different.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2021.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
