New‐onset autoimmune phenomena post‐Covid‐19 vaccination

It was probably assembled by professional editor. It is great job for digital nomads, and many bright people in line for this type of work. And paper has a good budget, there is an ad on first page :)

Then most likely you're not amongst the ones that suffer a reaction

This is a pretty non-controversial paper and doesn't contain anything shocking or previously unknown, but the title has the potential to cause controversy. Here's my quick summary:

- Previous vaccines for HPV, Hepatitis B and Flu are known to (rarely) trigger or worsen autoimmune diseases such as Guillain-Barré syndrome.

- Lots of new Covid vaccines have been created globally using a wide variety of technologies (mRNA, Adenovirus vector, inactivated virus, etc), so it stands to reason they could trigger rare side effects and different technologies might be associated with different side-effects.

- It seems wise to research how different side-effects might happen with each type of vaccine.

- These side-effects are so rare that it has not been proven they are caused by the vaccines - "However, whether the association between COVID-19 vaccine and autoimmune manifestations is coincidental or causal remains to be elucidated." But given the timing of them occurring in large populations post-vaccination, it's worth researching the possible mechanisms to figure out why they happen and see if they can be prevented.

- Even when side effects do occur, they can typically be treated using the standard protocols for each condition. But the more we know about them, the better we would be at treating them and at predicting which patients would be more likely to be at risk of developing them.

- The risk of rare side effects does not mean that populations shouldn't be vaccinated, because the risks of COVID-19 itself are higher - "We encourage and support COVID-19 vaccination globally to create an immunity barrier among population."

- But we should monitor for side-effects and learn about the mechanisms at work so we can prevent them, possibly by screening patients most at risk - "Systematic monitoring and ongoing follow-up of autoimmune events will be critical in identifying potential associations between autoimmune manifestations and COVID-19 vaccination, specific mechanisms of diagnosis and risk stratification for future vaccination."

So in short, let's all be grown ups and study the rare side-effects of vaccines so we can make them every more rare through better prevention and/or treatment.

Here are the specific conditions they theorize might be (in rare cases) triggered or worsened by the two most common types of vaccines in the West:

mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna)

- Vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (i.e your blood won't clot well)

- Immune thrombocytopenic purpura (bruising caused by low platelets)

- Autoimmune liver diseases

- Guillain–Barré syndrome

- IgA nephropathy (i.e. kidney problems)

- Rheumatoid arthritis

- Graves' disease (i.e. thyroid problems)

- Type 1 diabetes mellitus

Adenovirus vector (Johnson & Johnson, AstraZenica)

- Vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (i.e your blood won't clot well)

- Autoimmune liver diseases

- Guillain–Barré syndrome

- Rheumatoid arthritis

- Systemic lupus erythematosus (i.e. Lupus)

The paper also summarizes how these might be caused, but that's way beyond a summary. Just read the paper of you are interested.

I wish we could have a disclaimer on every article/study about vaccine side effects, something like: "This is not an attack on vaccines, pharmaceutical interventions, associated stakeholders or policy makers. This is not a statistical assessment of risk for specific audiences. Please focus feedback and resources on specific treatments for the living human beings who have been injured. Even one in a million is of little consolation when you are the unlucky lottery winner. If we can keep the focus on actionable treatments for helping those few who have been injured, we can improve pre-treatment screening to reduce those few injuries even closer to zero. Let's aim for one in ten million or less."

I have an in-law who's been diagnosed with Crohn's disease, having been sick since her second AZ shot.