The Covid-19 vaccine is strongly protected and has prevented millions of deaths. However, in a small number of people, the shot may have led to a constellation of side effects, including fatigue, exercise intolerance, brain fog, tinnitus and dizziness. .
Some people with this syndrome have clearly shown biological changes in immune cell differences, remeasuring dormant viruses called Epstein Barr, and persistence of coronavirus proteins in the blood. It looks like that.
The study was posted online Wednesday and has not yet been featured in scientific journals. “I want to emphasize that this is still a work in progress,” said Iwasakimon, an immunologist at Yale University.
“This study didn't decide what will make people sick,” she said.
Independent experts noted that the findings were inconclusive in themselves. But results from a science team known for their strict work suggest that post-vaccination syndrome deserves even more scrutiny, they said.
“One of the most important things is that John Werry, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Immunology Institute, said: (Previously, Dr. Whorry worked with Dr. Iwasaki's team. However, I did not participate in this work.)
Thousands of people say the Covid vaccines have hurt them. However, the US fragmented health care system complicates detection of rare side effects, making little clear about the extent of symptoms people may have experienced after Covid shots.
Additionally, patchwork made it difficult to compare and match self-reported anecdotes. The new research is small and the condition under investigation is “very heterogeneous,” says Dr. Gregory Poland, president of Atria Research Institute, honorary editor of the journal vaccine.
“In spite of these limitations, they found interesting data that needed further research,” he said. “It needs to be very carefully defined and much larger study of phenotypic individuals.”
Between December 2022 and November 2023, Dr. Iwasaki and her team collected blood samples from 42 healthy people with post-vaccination syndrome and 22 healthy people without it. Researchers found that people with syndrome were generally worse in health than the average US.
When they analyzed the components of the immune system, patients with post-vaccination syndrome had a different proportion of several immune cells compared to controls. It is unclear what these differences mean. The researchers did not link them to individual symptoms.
The symptoms reported by people with post-vaccination syndrome show significant overlap with long covid symptoms, so researchers analyzed the blood of 134 people with long covids and 134 healthy controls.
People with post-vaccination syndrome, like those with long covid, have shown reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus. It is a dormant virus within the body and is associated with mononuclear disease, multiple sclerosis and other conditions.
Some cases of long covids are thought to be attributed to the persistence of coronavirus spike proteins, which results in an increased state of inflammation in the body.
Dr. Iwasaki and her team say that people with post-vaccination syndrome have significantly higher plasma levels of coronavirus spike protein than anyone else at 26-709 days, 26-709 days after being administered the vaccine. I discovered it.
Dr. Iwasaki said the mRNA used in the vaccine itself is not a source of protein for a long time since the shot was administered. “Something else allows for late expression of this type of spike protein. We really don't know what it is,” she said.
Dr. Wherry suggested that we take caution when interpreting the results. For example, it could be due to a coronavirus infection where some of the protein is not detected. “We want to see more data on this topic,” he said.
Still, he added that it becomes even more important to continue exploring the question, as there is no clear answer.
“One of the things that scientists could have been locked up a bit during the pandemic is this realization that they should get all the answers, and if they can't give a definitive answer, then they should talk about it. Not,” he said.
“I think that's a mistake,” he added. “We can't say for certain if this doesn't happen.”
