Below is an excerpt of longer form research and writing which can be found here.

Compounding issues in communication of risk in the administration of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca is the sexist absence of communication about the higher risk of severe TTS from the AstraZeneca vaccine for younger women.

‘COVID-19 Health Campaign – Don’t be complacent’[1] is released online on 12^th July 2021, ten days before Katie receives her first dose of AstraZeneca. Featuring a distressed young [caucasian] woman on a ventilator, the woman is visibly, audibly, struggling to breathe whilst lying in a hospital bed, receiving no assistance. Low-light, with a gritty colour grade, this ad is an attempted [biased] representation of what can be the very real, severe, [and serious] infection from COVID-19. Containing the dialogue “Stay home. Get tested. Book your vaccination.”, the advertisement is another example of a sexist contradiction in risk assessment regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. Titling suggests she is in the situation because she was ‘complacent’. Apart from lacking diverse community representation, the ad is published at a time when no vaccines are available for people under 50 – except the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is not recommended for people under 60, and which is, to be repetitive, has a higher risk of more severe TTS and therefore fatality to younger women. Many reports describe younger people at the time as enthusiastic[2] about wanting to get vaccinated with Pfizer if it was available to them.[3] 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison brought body politics into the conversation about the risk of fatality from AstraZeneca by communicating another sexist risk assessment that compared the risk of TTS from AstraZeneca to the risk of getting blood clots from the combined oral contraceptive pill (which quite obviously only women/people with a uterus, of reproductive age, generally – take). A day after Katie died, government website HealthDirect publishes the contraceptive pill risk metaphor, mirroring what Morrison proclaimed.[4] Despite it not actually being correct (TTS from AstraZeneca is different to more common clotting conditions[5]), there is never an excuse for using a woman’s/person with a uterus, or anyone’s, contraceptive choices about her/their own bodies, against them. There is no excuse either, for steamrolling fear into a person’s decision making over their own body as it relates to sexual activity. In doing so, the right to choose a safe contraceptive method without fear of death is weaponised against women/people with a uterus to stoke fear, downplaying risk of death from AstraZeneca in younger women in the hope that it will lead to a faster uptake of vaccines.

Twenty days after Katie’s death, Australian Government Department of Health funded website ‘AstraZeneca vaccine: risk of death is 1 in a million, but what does that mean?’ is published on 24^th August 2021:

“1 in a million is really rare. See how it compares.[6] You are more likely to be struck by lightning or die from taking daily aspirin than to die from TTS after vaccination with AstraZeneca.”[7] ‘One in a million’ infers it is so unlikely to happen, that one needn’t worry about the risk, as it suggests that ‘one’ never actually exists. A bizarre infographic website dedicated to comparing the likelihood of Katie’s death occurring to inapplicable metaphors.

Created on the sole basis of the slogan ‘one in a million’, attempts to validate the claim are far-reaching, fearmongering, and often gendered. A sickening iceberg, symptomatic of a larger dialogue around the gender health gap, the government needing to bring up a maternal mortality rate as means to convince women to take AstraZeneca is disturbingly misplaced. All these inapplicable metaphors bandied about to try and define a scale to risk of harm (which in August 2021 is higher than one in a million in countries like the UK) are sadly too common of attitudes to women’s health. Exemplifying a dangerous message which reinforces the idea that the value of investment into women’s health is only dependent on her/their ability to produce children. Even in the clinical trials/medical information for AstraZeneca, any reference to women is regarding pregnancy.

In media reporting, the risk is also described to have been ‘overhyped’ – whereas in fact, the higher risk of more severe TTS in younger women, was not communicated at all. A series of media articles right before and shortly after Katie’s death, more common on particular media outlets, promote the uptake of AstraZeneca in younger women with no transparency of facts around risk. A known risk in women’s health was omitted from communications. On 29th June 2021, a day after the announcement by Scott Morrison that AstraZeneca would now be offered to anyone over the age of 18, against expert medical advice, a government authored document including data tables became the foundation of potential risk-benefit analysis for the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia. Apart from uncertain, incongruent, problematic data comparisons (including bulking the risk of TTS from first and second doses together so the statistically conveyed risk is lower) – the document doesn’t even include the word ‘women’.

Would Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison be willing to share what vaccine Jenny [his wife] and the girls [his daughters] had…? 

– Katie Lees’ Family

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v0Xc4dWYH4

[2] https://www.smh.com.au/national/one-thing-is-clear-young-australians-want-the-jab-but-please-don-t-confuse-us-20210630-p585i6.html

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57325514

[4] https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/blog/7-reasons-people-dont-get-covid-19-vaccinations

[5] https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/approved-vaccines/astrazeneca

[6] https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/astrazeneca-vaccine-risk-death-1-million-what-does-mean

[7] https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/approved-vaccines/astrazeneca