A Boston doctor suffered a severe allergic reaction to the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, the first of its kind documented on Friday.
Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh, a geriatric oncologist at Boston Medical Center, was dizzy and had his heart beating a few minutes after receiving the vaccine on Thursday, he told the New York Times.
“It was the same anaphylactic reaction I was experiencing with the crustaceans,” Dr. Sadrzadeh told the newspaper, noting that his tongue was numb, his blood pressure dropped and he burst into cold sweat.
“I don’t want anyone to go through this.”
Sadrzadeh self-administered an EpiPen which he brought in the event of such a reaction and was discharged following a brief emergency examination, the report said.
Although a handful of beneficiaries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have reported allergic reactions to that inoculation – including a New York medical worker – Sadrzadeh’s symptoms mark the first known reaction of its severity to the Modern hit.
Vaccines, which have similar ingredients, require both photos taken a few weeks apart.
Neither Moderna nor the Federal Food and Drug Administration, which approved the vaccines, commented on the Times report.