Relatives of people whose deaths were caused by the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine have had to fight for the jab to appear on their death certificates, an investigation by The Telegraph has found.
This publication has spoken to the families of three people who did not initially have the jab officially recorded as among the causes of death.
In all cases, the death certificates were subsequently amended after relatives raised queries or pushed for further investigation.
Relatives of those who died told The Telegraph that they felt the initial failure to record the Covid vaccine as being a cause of death could mean that the total number of people harmed could be higher than official figures show.
Data from the Office of National Statistics show that from early 2021, 64 deaths have been recorded as being caused by a Covid-19 vaccination.
However, this does not include any deaths that have not been registered because of delays over determining the cause of death, if an inquest is being carried out or if a family has asked for further investigation.
New death certificate after inquest reopened
In one of the examples uncovered by The Telegraph, a death certificate issued for Neil Miller, who died on May 1 2021, initially recorded his death as being the result of heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
However, after the coroner was contacted by both his widow and his GP surgery, the inquest was reopened with a subsequent certificate issued more than a year later recording “vaccine-induced” blood clots and low platelets – known as VITT – as one of the causes of death.
In a second case, Charlotte Wright, whose husband Dr Stephen Wright died in January 2021, was initially told that the death was owing to a stroke and therefore “natural causes”.
Mrs Wright said that the death certificate listed stroke, bleeding on the brain and blood clots, but after the family raised concerns and pushed for an inquest, a coroner said that Wright’s death was owing to “unintended complications of vaccination”.
Following this, his death certificate was updated.
In a third case, following the death of Stephen Ward on March 23 2021, his widow, Sheila, received a document called the “coroner’s certificate of the fact of death” – an interim certificate – which attributed her husband’s death to a blood clot.
She told The Telegraph that doctors who had treated Ward had said they believed he had VITT because he was their third patient they had treated over a five-day period.
However, it took until January 2022 for the inquest to conclude the clot was linked to the vaccine, at which point the death certificate was changed.
Data released by the NHS Business Services Authority, which operates the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme – the government scheme to provide compensation to those injured by vaccines or to bereaved next-of-kin – gives some indication of the numbers of families affected by adverse reactions to Covid vaccinations.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show 148 claimants have been notified they are entitled to a vaccine damage payment. Of the 148 claims, fewer than five were for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and the remaining claims were for the AstraZeneca jab.
‘I needed justice for my husband’
By Investigations Team
When Kam Miller heard a “horrible thud” in the bathroom, she immediately feared the worst.
Her husband Neil Miller had recently been discharged from hospital having been treated from clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, but she had hoped he was on the mend.
Running upstairs she pushed and tugged at the door, desperately trying to open it. Unfortunately, it was not only locked, but blocked, because he had fallen in front of it.
“I don’t even know how I opened that door,” Mrs Miller, 57, told The Telegraph, her voice breaking as she recalls what happened.
The emergency services told her to turn her husband over and quickly the couple’s daughter started giving her father CPR.
Despite the family’s best efforts, and that of the paramedics who arrived shortly afterwards, he died, aged 50.
It was a traumatic experience for everyone, including the couple’s son who was so bereft he lay on the floor on the spot where his father had died.
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
