
Alex Eben Meyer
Half an hour after California physician Danice Hertz got her first Covid-19 vaccine, she knew something was wrong. Her blood pressure spiked, she was dizzy, her vision blurred. Her skin felt like it was burning. Brain fog, chest pain, hives, and other symptoms soon followed. Hertz was diagnosed with a form of nerve damage, as well as other conditions whose symptoms continue today, several years later.
While reactions to Covid vaccines are rare, Hertz is not alone, and a new, yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper by School of Medicine professor Akiko Iwasaki and colleagues explores the biology of post-Covid-vaccine syndromes. Understanding how they happen could lead to safer vaccines.
In this small pilot study, the researchers took blood samples from 42 people with chronic symptoms after receiving a Covid vaccine and put them through a battery of tests. Compared with healthy controls, these subjects tended to show higher levels of the viral protein that mRNA vaccines cause to be produced, suggesting that perhaps their bodies are not able to dispose of it as easily as expected. Their blood also tended to show more signs of a recent activation of the Epstein–Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis and then persists in dormant form in the body afterwards, and some subtle differences in immune cells. “All of the features we detected, we still need to validate,” says Iwasaki. But the results suggest some avenues for future research to follow, in order to piece together why this happens to some people—and how to avoid it in the future.
“The vaccine really helped prevent severe disease and death. It was what we needed, absolutely,” says Iwasaki. She continues to get her updated Covid vaccines. At the same time, she says, “these rare issues that occur should not be swept under the rug,” she said.
Currently, there is no funding for future work, continued Iwasaki. “[But] I’m not going to give up. I’m hopeful. If we can get a couple hundred more patients,” she says, “then the signal will be a lot more clear.”
4 comments
COVID Vax injury is NOT rare. Both my parents were injured by the shot. My dad who was a hard working contributing member of society is now medically retired after BOTH her shoulders mysteriously gave out after the shot. First one side then the other. My dad was mid fifties otherwise healthy except for high blood pressure that was managed for years. He also has an acute hypertensive event that made me think he was about to have a stroke. He had personality changes. My mom was a completely healthy woman in mid fifties with no medical conditions besides seasonal allergies when she got the shot. Now she is in so much pain EVERYDAY that she has considered retiring early. No doctor can figure out what is wrong with her and when she was crying in their office one day, frustrated and in pain, they suggested she needed antidepressants! She said no shes just upset because no one can figure out why she feels so poorly all of a sudden. Since the shot rolled out I had more family and friends DIE than all the rest of the 36 years of my life - my dads sister and brother, my maternal grandmother, my step fathers brother, my best friend from high school went to be at 35 and NEVER WOKE UP! She was a healthy, normal weight, no drugs or Alcohol mother of 2 small children. I am in health care. Healthy 35 year old women dont just not wait up. Coroner, of course, found no reason for her death in autopsy. But I know. I know why all these loved ones died - reactions to the Covid shot. It appears to attack wherever someone is vulnerable already. My uncle and his wife presently have cancer, my other uncle got cancer too, and my step dad have cancer.
They are not "rare". I'm guessing someone is afraid of losing a funding source.
I have 40 friends vaccine inured by the covid 19 jab. I lost my roommates 2 parents from the Vax. My friend in Washington State lost 13 of his family members most in California from the Vax. 2 more are dying, his Mother and Sister. You call it rare? Are you not a person that does any research at all? That's not reality.
“ She continues to get her updated Covid vaccines. ” she is not very smart isn’t she?