By Marina Zhang
Researchers have identified a condition, termed post-vaccination syndrome or PVS, following COVID-19 mRNA or COVID-19 adenovirus vaccinations, according to a recent preprint from Yale University.
This condition is reported in only a small fraction of the population, the researchers wrote.
PVS shares similar symptoms to long COVID, including chronic fatigue, sleep difficulties, brain fog, and nerve changes, for months to years.
While long COVID is accepted by clinicians and the public, “PVS is not recognized by health authorities, and there are no defined diagnostic criteria for PVS,” the study’s lead author Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunology at Yale University, told The Epoch Times.
The study did not compare PVS patients to those with long COVID; nonetheless, Iwasaki said that PVS shares both immunological similarities and differences with long COVID.
Similar to long COVID, PVS patients often had persisting spike proteins, with some patients continuing to have spike protein in the blood at 700 days after their last vaccination.
PVS patients would also tend to have co-infections with other viruses like Epstein Barr and herpes.
Unlike long COVID patients, PVS patients had exhausted or inactive T cells—cells that are involved in killing cancer and infected cells.
“The subtle changes in T cells were not the same ones we see in long COVID,” Iwasaki said, adding that the two conditions are not the same.
While long COVID happens after infection with SARS-CoV-2, “PVS happens shortly after receiving COVID vaccines and is not caused by the infection,” Iwasaki said.
“Vaccines can reduce the risk of developing long COVID,” Iwasaki said.
“This work is still in its early stages, and we need to validate these findings,” Iwasaki said in the Yale press release. “But this is giving us some hope that there may be something that we can use for diagnosis and treatment of PVS down the road.”
“Our study on PVS is based on a small number of people and requires a larger study to confirm the findings.”
Immune System Changes
The small preliminary study evaluated 42 patients with PVS who received an initial COVID-19 vaccination, half of which had a prior COVID-19 infection while the other half did not.
These patients were compared against 22 healthy controls who did not experience PVS after getting COVID-19 vaccinations.
The researchers also found that patients with PVS had autoantibodies. While antibodies help fight off foreign infections, autoantibodies attack normal self-tissues.
The researchers found that the autoantibodies could attack 65 different types of human markers. They also highlighted two types of autoantibodies that appeared to be more prevalent in PVS patient samples. One type is anti-nucleosome autoantibodies, which is implicated in lupus, and another is anti-AQP4, which is implicated in neuromyelitis optica, a nervous system autoimmune disease.
PVS patients had low levels of antibodies to spike proteins compared with healthy controls, which the researchers linked to their discontinuance of COVID-19 booster vaccinations after getting PVS The spike protein is what the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to cause infection.
The mRNA and adenovirus COVID-19 vaccines also induce the body to make spike protein so that the body would be able to recognize the spike protein as foreign and attack it.
Like long COVID patients, PVS patients continued to have persistent spike proteins in their blood. These PVS patients had higher levels of spike protein compared to long COVID patients. The authors detected spike protein in blood samples ranging from 26 to 709 days, or the extent of study.
“Why persistent spike antigen fails to elicit an antibody response, and what the source of persistent spike in circulation is, requires further investigation,” the authors wrote.
Iwasaki said it was surprising to find circulating spike protein at such a “late time point.”
“We don’t know if the level of spike protein is causing the chronic symptoms, because there were other participants with PVS who didn’t have any measurable spike protein. But it could be one mechanism underlying this syndrome.”
What It Means
Prior to the Yale study, there have been doctors discussing this post-vaccination syndrome, which they have observed to be very similar to chronic fatigue syndrome.
However, this idea remains controversial.
“It’s kind of a novel idea, and may well be correct,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt Medical Center, adding that he has been aware of doctors who have speculated about rare adverse effects from COVID-19 vaccines and the new study confirms some of their concerns.
“I think one of the hallmarks of science is confirmation,” he said. “Before it [this concept] becomes at least mainstream, I would think it might provoke some other studies that could look at this question in a similar fashion.”
“We want to define as carefully as possible all adverse events associated with any drug use and with any vaccine use, so that we can know about them.”
Schaffner said the Yale study tries to define the mechanism behind the adverse effect, which helps substantiate their claim. He added that the findings are very important for public health advisers and members of the public to make informed decisions.
“No vaccine is completely free of adverse events, and then you have to compare it to the disease itself.”
He added that the occurrence of long COVID is much more common after infection than is post vaccine syndrome, with the latter being very rare.
For other doctors, the Yale study validated what they’ve been reporting.
Dr. Pierre Kory, former chief of the Critical Care Service at the University of Wisconsin, whose clinic specializes in treating patients with chronic fatigue syndrome from long COVID or post-vaccine syndrome, said that the new Yale study validates his real-world experience for the past three years.
He said that his clinic has treated between 1,500 and 2,000 patients struggling with either long COVID or post-vaccine syndrome.
However, among mainstream medicine, “there is no such thing as chronic vaccine injury,” Kory said. Chronic syndromes would be diagnosed and researched as long COVID.
The Yale study is the first clinical study investigating chronic fatigue syndrome following COVID-19 vaccination, among major established research groups in the United States.
“This is a little preprint [study] that excites us,” Kory said, referring to he and other doctors who have been treating these groups of patients whose condition has been largely unacknowledged.
Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist and senior fellow at Independent Medical Alliance, said that the Yale study also validates their long-held hypothesis of spike-protein driven damage.
The spike protein persisting for more than two years in some PVS patients, as shown in the Iwasaki study, may also support his and other doctors’ hypothesis that spike protein could be the driver of long COVID and PVS.
Iwasaki, whose team is currently the only major academic group in the United States looking into post-vaccine syndrome, said that the causes for PVS are still unknown, but a major question they have is how or why some people seem to be more harmed by spike protein, with longer persistence than others.
“Susceptibility may be related to pre-existing viral infections, immune responses, host genetics, or hormone levels.” Iwasaki said.
“If we can predict who will respond poorly to COVID or the spike protein in advance, we can minimize chronic illnesses after infection or vaccination.”
