An inquest held in the 2021 death of a British man has pinned the blame for his death on a blood clot caused by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Jack Last, 27, of Stowmarket, was vaccinated on March 30, 2021. One week later he was hospitalized, suffering headaches, according to the BBC. On April 10, a scan revealed a type of blood clot known as a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Last died 10 days later.
An inquest into his death began Monday, in Suffolk Coroner’s Court, according to the East Anglian Daily Times.
Senior Coroner Nigel Parsley announced his ruling on Wednesday after hearing two days of testimony.
“In Jack’s case, I will record that Jack Last died of a blood clot to the brain as a direct result of his body’s reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine given to him on March 30, 2021,” he said.
Parsley said the shot ignited an excessive immune response that led to blood clots in multiple areas of Last’s body, according to ITV.
During the inquest, Last was described as “fit and healthy.”
The BBC report said that doctors gave Last blood thinners to address the issues caused by the clot, but he then developed bleeding in the brain.
The BBC noted that during the spring of 2021, the appearance of rare blood clots in young adults who had been vaccinated led to medical officials in Britain being urged not to give that population the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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According to ITV, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency issued guidelines in May — weeks after Last died — that people under 40 should be given another brand of vaccine wherever possible.
Dr. William Petchey told the inquest that he initially ruled out a connection between the vaccine and the clot.
“It’s hard to explain now what this was like. This was not a condition any of us had trained for, or which we had experience with,” he said, according to Suffolk News.
Dr. Martin Besser told the inquest that at the time, there was uncertainty as to whether blood clots were linked to the vaccine.
BBC news report on Coroner’s inquest findings into death of Jack Last, aged 27, caused by Astra Zeneca Covid vaccine induced thromboembolic thrombocytopenia https://t.co/Ges3psnyci
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In a statement, Last’s parents said their son “had a strong chance of survival if he had been given the right treatment when he walked into the hospital,” according to ITV
“That chance was taken away. We had no medical knowledge. We put our faith in the NHS to help Jack,” they said, referring to Britain’s National Health Service.
During the inquest, it was learned that one scan called for could not be performed because of staffing issues at the hospital where Last had been taken. Michael Portman-Hann, a representative of Last’s family, said that had the hospital been able to do the correct scan, “treatment would have been started sooner and Jack might have survived.”
“On behalf of Jack’s family, we will now be pursuing a clinical negligence case against the hospitals that could and should have been able to do more to try to save him,” he said.
