A Boston oncology doctor experienced a severe allergic reaction after he received Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, a rare reaction that has also happened after people took the Pfizer vaccine, The New York Times reported.
Boston Medical Center doctor Hossein Sadrzadeh, who has a shellfish allergy, suffered an anaphylactic reaction following a dose of the Moderna vaccine on Christmas Eve, he told the newspaper.
BMC confirmed the allergic reaction incident on Friday.
“The employee received the Moderna vaccine Thursday and as is our standard practice was being observed post vaccination by trained nurses,” BMC said in a statement.
“He felt he was developing an allergic reaction and was allowed to self-administer his personal epi-pen.
“He was taken to the Emergency Department, evaluated, treated, observed and discharged,” the hospital added.
“He is doing well today.”
The CDC has learned of reports that some people have experienced severe allergic reactions, also known as anaphylaxis, after getting a Covid-19 vaccine, added the report.
The rare severe allergic reactions could be tied to a chemical found in both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The compound called polyethylene glycol “could be a culprit here,” the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research recently said about the allergic reactions.
“We just don’t know at this point, and we’ll just have to use our good pharmacovigilance to monitor what’s going on,” Director Peter Marks told NYT.
The FDA is working with the CDC on investigating the cause of these allergic reactions.
