AstraZeneca has pulled its COVID shots off the European market, just one month after admitting in court for the first time that the jabs can cause rare but devastating side effects.

According to AstraZeneca, the removal of Vaxzevria is merely for financial reasons, and claimed that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s updated shots are more related to the current mutation.

But a number of social media users are questioning the timing of the decision, given that it was just last month when AstraZeneca admitted in court that their COVID vaccine can cause serious side effects, albeit “rare.” 

The admission comes amid a High Court lawsuit, where over fifty purported victims and their distraught family members are suing AstraZeneca.

The first complaint was filed last year by an English father of two. After receiving the vaccine in April 2021, Mr. Jamie Scott developed a blood clot and a bleed on his head, leaving him out of work and with a severe brain impairment. At the time, his wife received three calls from the hospital informing her that her husband would not be coming back.

Although AstraZeneca disputes the allegations, it acknowledged in a court filing filed in February with the High Court that the Covid vaccine “may, in very rare cases, cause TTS.”

Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, or TTS, was connected to hundreds of serious injuries following AstraZenica’s COVID vaccine. Between May 2021 and May 2022, at least 81 fatalities in the UK followed the jab, and hundreds of other TTS injuries, such as brain damage.

The Telegraph reports that in the upcoming months, similar requests to remove Vaxzevria from the UK and other nations where it was approved by regulators are expected to be submitted. 

The US never approved the vaccine’s use.

The decision also comes two months after AstraZeneca announced they would be investing $750 million (CAD) into the UK to conduct research, develop, and produce vaccines, and a total of $1 billion has been invested to improve their pandemic preparedness.