COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives and the world is preparing for a new round of recalls. But like all vaccines, coronavirus vaccines can cause side effects in some people, including rare cases of abnormal blood clotting and heart inflammation. In recent months, though, what some call the Long Vax has gained greater acceptance from doctors and scientists, and some are working to better understand and treat its symptoms. “When you see one or two patients you wonder if it’s a coincidence”dice Anne Louise Oaklanderneurologist and researcher at the Harvard Medical School. “But when you’ve seen 10, 20”continues the researcher, “You can no longer help but think that smoking is not a coincidence”.
Symptoms can include persistent headaches, severe tiredness, and heart rate and blood pressure abnormalities. They appear hours, days or weeks after vaccination and are difficult to study. But researchers and physicians are increasingly finding alignment with known medical conditions. One is small fiber neuropathy, a condition studied by Oaklanderin which nerve damage can cause tingling or electric shock-like sensations, burning pain, and blood circulation problems.
The second is a more nebulous syndrome, with symptoms sometimes triggered by small fiber neuropathy, called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). It can lead to muscle weakness, heart rate and blood pressure fluctuations, fatigue, and brain fog. Patients with post-vaccination symptoms may have features of one or both conditions, even if they do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis. Both are also common in Long Covid patients, where they are often attributed to an immune overreaction.
Links between vaccines and long covid
Although more researchers are taking the Long Vax seriously, regulators in the US and Europe say they have looked for, but not found, a link between the COVID-19 vaccines and small fiber neuropathy, or POTS. “We cannot rule out rare cases”he claims Peter Marksdirector of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines. “If an operator has someone in front of them, they may take the concept seriously [di] a side effect of the vaccine”, he claims. But Marks he also worries about “sensational headlines” that could mislead the public, and stresses that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh the risks.
Despite the uncertainties, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach acknowledged in March that, although rare, Long Covid-like symptoms after vaccination are a real phenomenon. He said his ministry is working to arrange funding for the studies, though none has been announced so far.
Researchers studying these complications are also concerned with undermining confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale University, says fears that the antivaccine movement could exploit the research results made him hesitate at first. But about a year ago, together with the immunologist of Yale Akiko Iwasaki, has begun welcoming post-vaccination patients in a new study called LISTEN, which also includes Long Covid patients. The aim is, among other things, to correlate symptoms with immune cell patterns in blood samples.
The side effects of vaccines
“I am convinced that there is something wrong” in these side effects, he says Krumholz. “It is my duty, if I am really a scientist, to have an open mind and find out if there is anything that can be done.” SCIENCE FIRST wrote about these health issues in January 2022, describing the efforts of scientists from the National Institutes of Health to study and treat those affected. A study of 23 people was released as a preprint in May 2022, but has never been published. Following the Science story, nearly 200 people reached out to the magazine sharing their post-vaccination symptoms.
Since then, the search has proceeded slowly. It is “a difficult result to monitor,” he said in January Tom Shimabukuro of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to a government advisory committee. However, more than two dozen case studies describing POTS or small fiber neuropathy following a COVID-19 injection have accumulated, regardless of the vaccine manufacturer.
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