A Boston doctor with a history of allergies had a severe allergic reaction to Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.
Hossein Sadrzadeh told CNN that after being vaccinated at Boston Medical Center on Thursday, he felt his heart rate rise to 150 beats per minute.
Sadrzadeh also told the media that in a few minutes he “felt a strange tingling and numbness in my tongue and also in my throat, the same reaction I had before with my shellfish allergy.” He also said his blood pressure had dropped so much that a monitor was unable to detect it.
Sadrzadeh used his EpiPen and was rushed to the emergency room where he received medication, according to The New York Times. He was released four hours later and told the newspaper he felt fully recovered on Friday.
The Hill contacted Boston Medical Center, Moderna and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for comment.
The incident is the first of its kind reported after Moderna’s vaccine was approved by federal health agencies and distributed and occurs while the FDA investigated several reports of allergic reactions in the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.
Peter Marks, who heads the FDA’s Center for Biological Research and Evaluation, said last weekend a chemical called polyethylene glycol, which is present in both vaccines, “may be to blame”.
At the time, the agency advised those who had severe reactions to any component of Moderna’s vaccine in the past not to take that injection.
In the light of allergic reactions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance advice those who have severe responses after the first dose do not receive a second injection. The agency also says that people allergic to vaccines or injectable therapies should consult their doctors before being vaccinated.
However, the CDC notes that those who have a history of serious allergic reactions unrelated to vaccines or injectable drugs – such as food, pets or environmental allergies – can still be vaccinated.
More than 1.94 million people received their first dose of Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccine on Saturday afternoon, according to a CDC count.