viruses
Comment
Data of the COVID-19 mRNA-Vaccine V-Safe Surveillance
System and Pregnancy Registry Reveals Poor Embryonic and
Second Trimester Fetal Survival Rate. Comment on
Stuckelberger et al. SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Willingness among
Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women during the First Pandemic
Wave: A Cross-Sectional Study in Switzerland. Viruses 2021,
13, 1199
Serge Stroobandt 1 and Roland Stroobandt 2, *
1 Independent Researcher, Kolonel Dusartplein 10, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium; serge@stroobandt.com
2 Vaccination Center Oostende-Bredene, 8400 Oostende, Belgium
* Correspondence: roland@stroobandt.com
Citation: Stroobandt, S.; Stroobandt,
R. Data of the COVID-19 mRNA-
Vaccine V-Safe Surveillance System
and Pregnancy Registry Reveals Poor Dr. Sarah Stuckelberger and her colleagues should be commended for their cross-
Embryonic and Second Trimester sectional study assessing the willingness of Swiss pregnant and breastfeeding women to
Fetal Survival Rate. Comment on be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 [1]. They emphasise the need to identify and reduce
Stuckelberger et al. SARS-CoV-2 barriers towards immunisation. Furthermore, they express the hope that when more data
Vaccine Willingness among Pregnant become available about vaccinated pregnant women, willingness to be vaccinated will
and Breastfeeding Women during the increase. Moreover, the authors refer to a study [2] that has been unequivocally heralded
First Pandemic Wave: A Cross- as a proof of safety for the use of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in pregnant women.
Sectional Study in Switzerland. Regardless, we would like to advise readers that the referenced article contains a
Viruses 2021, 13, 1199. Viruses 2021, 13,
serious error regarding the interpretation of the data presented in Table 4. Prospective
1545. https://doi.org/10.3390/
cohort studies are routinely performed to establish the safety of novel obstetric interven-
v13081545
tions. Such studies typically compare, at the same gestational age, the wellbeing of a
cohort that underwent the intervention to that of a comparable control cohort (or, in the
Academic Editor: Kenneth
absence of this, the pertaining population) without the intervention. Nonetheless, the
Lundstrom
cited study compared the control population’s incidence rate of spontaneous abortions
Received: 13 July 2021
of 10 to 26% prior to week 20 to the incidence among the 827 study participants of which
Accepted: 30 July 2021
700 received their first dose only in the third trimester, i.e., after week 26. However, a
Published: 5 August 2021 correct comparison with the remaining 127 participants sets the 104 spontaneous abortions
recorded prior to week 20 at an alarming incidence of 82%, i.e., 3 to 8 times higher than in
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral the control population. This observation suggests that obstetric vaccine safety is severely
with regard to jurisdictional claims in compromised during pregnancy and may lead to decreased willingness among pregnant
published maps and institutional affil- women to be vaccinated.
iations.
Author Contributions: Both authors contributed equally to this paper. All authors have read and
agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: The authors received no external funding.
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
distributed under the terms and
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Viruses 2021, 13, 1545. https://doi.org/10.3390/v13081545 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/viruses
Viruses 2021, 13, 1545 2 of 2
References
1. Stuckelberger, S.; Favre, G.; Ceulemans, M.; Nordeng, H.; Gerbier, E.; Lambelet, V.; Stojanov, M.; Winterfeld, U.; Baud, D.;
Panchaud, A.; et al. SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Willingness among Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women during the First Pandemic
Wave: A Cross-Sectional Study in Switzerland. Viruses 2021, 13, 1199. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
2. Shimabukuro, T.T.; Kim, S.Y.; Myers, T.R.; Moro, P.L.; Oduyebo, T.; Panagiotakopoulos, L.; Marquez, P.L.; Olson, C.K.; Liu, R.;
Chang, K.T.; et al. Preliminary Findings of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Safety in Pregnant Persons. N. Engl. J. Med. 2021,
384, 2273–2282. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
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