TY - JOUR T1 - Blood clots, COVID-19 vaccines and the contraceptive pill: are we heading for a repeat of the 1995 pill scare? JF - BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health JO - BMJ Sex Reprod Health DO - 10.1136/bmjsrh-2021-201219 SP - bmjsrh-2021-201219 AU - Anita Mitra Y1 - 2021/06/21 UR - http://jfprhc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/06/21/bmjsrh-2021-201219.abstract N2 - There has been a wealth of media coverage regarding venous thromboembolism (VTE) following certain types of COVID-19 vaccines in the mainstream media and online. To put the risk into perspective for the general public, many journalists, authors and even scientific journals have used the risk of VTE associated with ‘the contraceptive pill’ and air travel as comparators. While this may be well-meaning, it is an unjust comparison and may have unintended consequences on contraceptive use and unplanned pregnancies.Such alarming headlines can be emotive to contraceptive users. VTE associated with hormonal contraceptive use generally relates to deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, which is quite a different clinical picture to the cerebral venous sinus thromboses (CVST) being reported in individuals receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine that also appear to arise by a different mechanism.1 The complications are neither similar conditions, nor have similar outcomes with CVST, … ER -