Another of V&C1's scary stories folks.

TLDR: 1 - "The annual incidence of transverse myelitis ranges from 1.34 to 4.60 cases per million" https://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS/Related-Conditions/Transverse-Myelitis.

2 - All of these studies combined (see below) report 42 cases of transverse myelitis and 89 other central nervous system events. Only one was a fatality & a lot (not clear how many) recovered completely.

3 - In that time almost 730 million doses of vaccine were administered. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-doses-by-manufacturer

4 - That's 0.2 cases per million. They will have to find a lot more evidence to get up to the "normal" incidence of transverse myelitis. I'm sure there's some out there, but how much? Nowhere near enough so far.

So the connection between the vaccines and transverse myelitis so far falls into the "less than one in a million" category. According to the odds presented in this paper (https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/personal-finance/17-things-more-likely-to-happen-to-you-than-winning-the-lottery-181005/) you're more likely to become a billionaire, be killed by hornets / wasps / bees, score a golf hole-in-one, go to the e.r. with a pogo stick-related injury, win an Olympic gold medal, or have conjoined twins. This site (https://www.savethestudent.org/save-money/things-more-likely-than-winning-lottery.html) says your odds are better for dating a super model or winning an Oscar, than getting transverse myelitis from a covid vaccine.

The long version:

LINK #1: July 2021 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination-Induced Transverse Myelitis https://www.cureus.com/articles/63667-sars-cov-2-vaccination-induced-transverse-myelitis

It's about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. As of July 2021, the date of publication of this paper, about ten million doses of Johnson&Johnson had been delivered. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-doses-by-manufacturer

How many cases of transverse myelitis did the paper discover?

One.

And the patient went home after 10 days of treatment.

LINK #2: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34370410/ This is the CoronaVAC vaccine. It's not approved for use in Canada.

LINK #3: Sept 10th, 2021: Acute transverse myelitis following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34482455/

Full case report: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-021-10785-2

A single woman. "A 67-year-old patient with a significant medical history of coronary artery disease, chronic kidney disease, neuropathy and a previous colon rupture with colostomy". This one had Moderna. One other case of transverse myelitis was referenced in a table in this literature review.

LINK #4: December 23 2021: Acute autoimmune transverse myelitis following COVID-19 vaccination https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Acute-autoimmune-transverse-myelitis-following-Hirose-Hara/84a3eecc5058785d0f518c341c52d02f3a86ab98

Full case report: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34941191/

[One] 70-year-old male presented with progressive sensorimotor dysfunction of the bilateral lower limbs 7 days after receiving the mRNA-1273 [Moderna] vaccine. The patient fully recovered from muscle weakness of the lower limbs. Apparently discharged after 5 days.

LINK #5: February 21 2022: Case Reports of Acute Transverse Myelitis Associated With mRNA BNT162b2 Vaccine for COVID-19 23 yr old female spinal C1-C3 spinal injury. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35191229/

Full case report: https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e52

Two people.

Case 1: An 81-year-old Korean man received the BNT162b2 [Pfizer] vaccine on April 29 and May 19, 2021. Three days after the second dose of the vaccine, he presented with bilateral hand weakness and numbness in his fingers. ... The patient had a history of hypertension and diabetes mellitus.

Case 2: A 23-year-old Korean woman with no relevant medical history received the BNT162b2 [Pfizer] vaccine on August 18, 2021. Three weeks after the first dose of the vaccine, the patient suddenly experienced a tingling sensation in both thighs. Not completely recovered 3 months later.

LINK #6: March 2022 December 20, 2021: Acute transverse myelitis after BNT162b2 vaccination against COVID-19: Report of a fatal case one day after Pfizer booster. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34953348/

Full letter: https://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(21)02804-5/fulltext

An 81 year old man received the BNT162b2 (Pfizer) vaccine. He has vertigo and vomiting the next day. He recovered and was discharged 3 days later. Back in the hospital on day 15 with difficulty walking. Diagnosed with acute transverse myelitis on day 30. Died on the 58th day.

Plus 10 other cases, all recovered.

LINK #7: 2022 May 9: Consider Transverse Myelitis as a Complication of a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35535377/

Full letter: https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e150

The letter discusses 20 patients.

LINK #8: April 5th, 2022 : COVID-19 mRNA vaccines associated with MOG-Ab disease and transverse myelitis: Two case reports. https://n.neurology.org/content/98/18_Supplement/1185

A 38 year old man (Moderna) and a 39 year old woman (Pfizer). "Both patients improved with intravenous corticosteroids. ... While the risk of CNS demyelinating events is non-negligible, the incidence is very low. The rate of demyelinating events after the COVID-19 infection is higher. Therefore, we feel that the overall benefits of vaccination outweigh the marginal risk. However, providers should be aware of this potential neurological complication of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines."

LINK #9: May 3rd 2022: Neurology Medical Journal: A Case of Transverse Myelitis After Moderna SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination. https://n.neurology.org/content/98/18_Supplement/2030

"60-year-old, right-handed man with chronic right hemisphere stroke with residual left hemiparesis ... 10 days after receiving his second Moderna ... He improved with methylprednisolone 1000 mg daily for five days suggesting an autoimmune etiology ... Though post-vaccination myelopathy is potentially debilitating if untreated, it is rare, and the benefits of vaccination appear to outweigh the risks."

LINK #10: November 2022 2022 May 5: COVID-19 vaccine associated transverse myelitis. Evusheld as an option when vaccination is not recommended due to severe adverse events https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35511579/

Full letter: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9302530/

One 64 year old male with myelitis which started one day after his second Moderna.

LINK #11: December 2022: Spinal inflammatory demyelinating events after COVID-19 vaccines: A case series and systematic review. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36530641/

Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9752005/

"Vaccinations provided the most effective tool to fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It is now well established that COVID-19 vaccines are safe for the general population ... we performed a systematic literature search of post-COVID-19 vaccines CIDEs, including ATM, ADEM, MS, and NMOSD/MOGAD, published worldwide between December 2020 and December 2021, during 1 year of the vaccination campaign. ... 91 CIDEs were summarized"

In a review of a whole year of published literature they reported on 91 central nervous system events, two of which were transverse myelitis. Over the same time period almost 700 million doses of the vaccines were delivered.

Remember: Way, way more incidents than this are required just to match the normal, pre-covid level of transverse myelitis.