Childrens in China Diagnosed Diabetes After COVID-19 Vaccines
Tears would well up in the 5-year-old kindergartner's eyes whenever
he saw other children snacking—a luxury to the boy ever since he
was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in late January. The diagnosis
came 1 1/2 months after he got his second dose of a Chinese
COVID-19 vaccine (
https://bit.ly/3OlvahU).
Puncture marks are filling up every finger of both of the boy's hands
due to the constant finger pricking needed to monitor his blood sugar
level, according to his father. He gets four doses of insulin every
day, and every meal is weighed and measured for carbs.
The boy belongs to a group of between 600 and 1,000 Chinese children
diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes between last October and May,
according to an open letter signed by parents in this cohort. Beijing
ushered a nationwide campaign in late October to inoculate children
aged 3 to 11 the age group covering most of the diabetic patients.
On May 31, the eve of International Children's Day, their parents
wrote an open letter pleading for public attention.
"We initially didn't link it with vaccines, but thinking back and
forth, our children didn't have any change in lifestyle or diet, the
only change was getting the vaccine, and they got symptoms after
the vaccination," they wrote in the letter that was first published
on a site managed by Wei Boxing, a Chinese health care activist.
The letter had over 300,000 views and 800 comments as of June 11.
Many commenters were anxious parents saying they were in the
same boat. They left their phone numbers and asked to be added to
a group on Chinese social media WeChat containing people who
said they or a family member had experienced severe side effects
after taking Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.
