Taking the contraceptive pill is more likely to give you a blood clot than having the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, a doctor has said.
Dr Hilary Jones waded into the debate surrounding the jab after several European countries paused its roll-out over concerns it raises the risk of blood clots.
The TV doctor told Lorraine on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Tuesday that blood clots are caused by an array of reasons and that people should not be concerned.
"We do know there is a link between smoking, or sitting still for long periods of time, or being pregnant, and blood clots," he said.
"People have blood clots because they're on the pill, because they smoke, because they have trauma on the leg. There are all sorts of reasons while people have blood clots.
"The number of blood clots European countries have seen are 30 among the population of 17 million who have had the jab.
"The risk is lower than we see in the normal population. I would like to reassure people that the vaccine is safe."
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According to the European Medicine's Agency, there have been 30 cases in five million vaccinated people across the continent.
While blood clots are common - around 1 in 1,000 people a year develop one because of medical conditions or medication - the German and Norwegian health authorities took action because of a particular type - cerebral venous sinus thrombosis - which affects younger people.
In Germany for example, there have been seven cases of out of 1.6 million vaccinations, giving a rate of 4.5 per million people.
In an average month without the vaccine, one or two people under the age of 50 would suffer from cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, Sky News reports.
This means those who have had the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine may have had four times as many of the blood clots as would be expected, although the data is too small to draw a causal link.
As much as everybody wants to avoid such conditions, the risk - which is not yet proven - has to be seen in context.
Taking the pill is widely known to increase the chance of blood clots, but many choose to take it having been made aware of the risk, which is very low, because the benefits are clear.
Last week the Mirror reported on Riszka Szymkowska, who died when a blood clot reached her heart having been taking oral contraceptives for two years without a check-up.
According to scientists writing in the National Center for Biotechnology Information the odds ratio of someone having cerebral venous sinus thrombosis increases by 7.5 times if they are taking oral contraceptives.
This is significantly higher than the risk reported in the vaccinated case studies from Germany.
Nonetheless, France, Germany, Spain and Italy have paused use of the jab while they await an investigation by the EU's regulator into reports of clots in a small number of recipients.
But other EU members, including Poland and Belgium, are continuing its use.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will release its findings on Thursday.
EMA chief Emer Cooke said: "I want to stress at present there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions."
For a full list of countries which have stopped using the jab click here.
