Is it true that vaccinations cause autoimmune diseases?

Among other concerns about the side effects of the coronavirus vaccine, it is widely believed that the shot may trigger autoimmune diseases. We decided to check whether such caution has a scientific basis.

Users of social networks and instant messengers write about autoimmune diseases as possible side effects of vaccination. They tell scary stories For example: “Few people know about the terrible consequences of the introduction of foreign animal tissues (their DNA and RNA) and the autoimmune reactions that they can cause. Vaccines suppress the immune system and can cause cancer, leukemia and even be linked to AIDS.” Or: “Autoimmune disease after vaccination. Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (Moschkowitz disease) with a mortality rate of 90%!!! The reason is an experimental substance in vaccines!” Users refer to the position of Dorit Blikstein, head of the hematogynecological service of the Institute of Hematology of the Beilinson Clinic (Israel) and Russian economist Mikhail Delyagin.

Autoimmune (aka systemic) diseases are pathologies associated with impaired functioning of the immune system. The immune system begins to produce pathological antibodies or auto-aggressive killer lymphocytes, which perceive the body’s own tissues as foreign, infecting and destroying them. Autoimmune diseases can affect one organ in isolation, but more often the autoimmune inflammatory process affects the entire organ system, or even the entire body. To autoimmune diseases include systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, autoimmune thyroiditis (inflammation of the thyroid gland), thyrotoxicosis, Sjogren's syndrome, Goodpasture's syndrome, etc. Autoimmune conditions have been most actively studied in the last century, but have accompanied humanity since ancient times. The earliest tissue sample from people who had autoimmune diseases dated 4500 BC e.

Scientists allocate four main causes of autoimmune diseases. 

The first is infection with an agent whose epitopes (part of the molecule to which the antigen reacts; more about epitopes and antigens Here) are similar to normal body tissues. So, after a streptococcal infection, it can develop autoimmune glomerulonephritis (inflammation of the renal glomeruli), and after gonorrhea or chlamydia - autoimmune reactive arthritis. 

The second is a change in body tissue due to pathological processes so that the body begins to attack it. According to this principle, after suffering viral hepatitis, an autoimmune chronic disease can develop. hepatitis.

The third is a violation of the barrier between tissues and organs and blood, and consequently, the lymphocytes in it. This is the cause of autoimmune disease prostatitis And thyroiditis.

The fourth is pathologically enhanced immunity or an imbalance of the immune system with increased activity of killer lymphocytes.

In simple terms, in the first case, the body kills its cells, which are similar to the cells of the previously defeated virus. In the second, it kills its own cells that have changed due to the disease, but have already recovered. In the third, due to violations of tightness, the body kills what has penetrated the wrong place, or, conversely, the killers penetrate normal tissues and destroy them. And in the fourth, due to aggravated reactions, the body kills everything it sees.

Vaccination definitely cannot trigger the second and third mechanisms. If the first reason worked (the similarity of the epitope of the virus and human tissues), then autoimmune diseases would trigger both the disease and vaccines (whole virion, or if a similar epitope was located on RDB domain S-spike) with equal frequency, and if the epitope were located elsewhere in the virus, then only the disease and whole-virion vaccines. Finally, the fourth reason, in theory, could also become the “trigger”.

Let's try to figure it out. During clinical trials of Sputnik V, researchers not recorded no cases of autoimmune diseases in a group of more than 20,000 volunteers. Back in January 2021, another group of scientists also investigated possible autoimmunity after vaccination against various diseases. For the flu they brought out ratio, according to which “the risk of developing autoimmune diseases was estimated to be ten times higher after natural influenza infection compared with influenza vaccine use.” And the Australian Department of Health in April reported, that not a single case of autoimmune disease caused by vaccination has been recorded in the country. Regarding vaccines Johnson & Johnson And Pfizer - BioNTech, there are descriptions of clinical cases of the occurrence of autoimmune diseases (in particular, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura) after vaccination, but scientists have not yet been able to track the exact relationship between these two phenomena. According to scientists, the data do not allow us to judge a cause-and-effect relationship, and further research is needed.

A little over a month ago, on July 12, the results of a large-scale observation were published, which examined the effectiveness of the blood of vaccinated people against virus variants classified as “of concern” according to the WHO classification. No autoimmune antibodies were found in any of the blood samples from vaccinated and previously disease-free people selected for the experiment. At the same time, there is data from several parallel observations indicating that autoimmune antibodies were observed precisely in the blood of sick people.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, researchers wondered about the connection between vaccination and the occurrence of autoimmune diseases. In 2017, a group of scientists analyzed pairs: influenza vaccine and Guillain-Barré syndrome, influenza vaccine and type 1 diabetes, hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis, hepatitis B vaccine and systemic lupus erythematosus, MMR vaccine and idiopathic thrombocytopenia, MMR vaccine and rheumatoid arthritis, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and primary ovarian failure, HPV vaccine and systemic lupus erythematosus, HPV vaccine and ASIA syndrome (autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants), HPV vaccine and transverse myelitis. According to their observations, the likelihood of these autoimmune reactions after these vaccines is less than 0.01%, while some of the diseases on the list that vaccination is aimed at preventing are much more likely to cause an autoimmune response, not to mention other possible complications.

And finally, about those whose positions on the issue of the occurrence of autoimmune diseases due to vaccination were used by social network users. Dorit Blikstein heads several medical departments: the hematogynecology service of the Institute of Hematology of the Beilinson Clinic, the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University, the department of obstetrics and gynecology of the Kaplan Medical Center and the Hadassah Hospital School of Medicine of the Hebrew University. She author several scientific articles. At the same time she doesn't speak about the “mortality rate of 90%” from thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, she reports that earlier, when modern drugs were still available, the mortality rate of this disease reached 90%, and today most patients fully recover and leave the hospital on their own feet. Moreover, Blikstein also does not report the relationship she found between the disease and vaccination, she only says that most of the sick people received the vaccine between 5 and 28 days ago. Social media users have distorted the original quote, giving it a scary meaning.

As for Mikhail Delyagin, he does not have a medical education, but specializes in economics. Our Colleagues more than once exposed his statements.

Thus, to date there is no evidence that vaccination against coronavirus can provoke autoimmune diseases. At the same time, observations from several groups of independent scientists have established that the coronavirus infection itself can lead to an increase in the number of autoimmune antibodies and, therefore, can provoke autoimmune diseases.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Who, how and how much earns from conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination propaganda
2. Canvas. Oil. Arthritis.