It doesn't take much to fuel anti-vax fever
"Bombshell...new AIDS crisis...does ivermectin reverse that?"
It is undeniable that some people have some side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. But anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists are quick to jump on early, unproven research findings and pass along their wild misrepresentations of data as solid gold proof to their social media minions.
It’s happening again.
On February 18, a team of researchers led by a group at Yale University School of Medicine described their work in a preprint article posted by MedRxiv, which posts this disclaimer:
This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.
A Yale PR news release avoided any blatant exaggeration of the work. An excerpt follows this headline:
COVID-19 vaccines have been instrumental in reducing the impact of the pandemic, preventing severe illness and death, and they appear to protect against long COVID. However, some individuals have reported chronic symptoms that developed soon after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. This little-understood, persistent condition, referred to as post-vaccination syndrome (PVS), remains unrecognized by medical authorities, and little is known about its biological underpinnings.
In a new study, Yale researchers have taken initial steps to characterize this condition, uncovering potential immunological patterns that differentiate those with PVS from others. The findings are early and require further confirmation but may eventually guide strategies to help affected individuals.
Several significant limitations to the study were discussed by the researchers in the preprint. The summary includes this:
This study is early-stage and requires replication and validation. We emphasize the critical task of discerning between meaningful results and random fluctuations in the data.
The New York Times reported the study with appropriate caveats. The lead researcher was quoted:
“It’s not like this study determined what’s making people sick,” she said, “but it’s the first kind of glimpse at what may be going on within these people.”
But on social media, the cautious tone of the Yale researchers was ignored. In its place, hyperbole had a field day, with claims such as:
A bombshell new study confirms what we feared. The implications are massive - a vaccine that weakens immunity instead of strengthening it?
Everyone I know that’s vaxxed keeps getting sick over and over and over. So now what? Does ivermectin reverse that permanently?
Beyond a doubt the shots should be pulled.
The new AIDS crisis - thanks big pharma.
Anyone who took the Moderna needs to be tested for HIV.
The thing I’ve noticed is that some of the vaccanatinated (sic) outright refuse to believe they were harmed.
Exactly why I didn’t get the vaccine. It was all a lie.
But today, Andrea Love, PhD, a microbiologist and immunologist who is very active on social media, wrote on her Substack:
Excerpt:
It is being circulated by anti-vaccine advocates as proof that COVID-19 vaccines cause immunodeficiency and therefore, their claims for the past 5 years are validated.
The study doesn’t show any of this. In fact, the study can’t tell us anything about potential adverse impacts of COVID-19 vaccines.
There are also large social media accounts who, because they lack field-specific knowledge, have shared inaccurate summaries about the study and findings across widely shared posts, blogs, and videos, further contributing to this misinformation.
Her analysis is long and detailed. You can read it all here.
My summary
My emphasis - as always on this site - will be about the impact of media massages - social media in this case. It is unfortunate that a preprint article, not peer reviewed, about a small study would draw the kind of reaction and attention on social media that this has. There is a certainty stated in the reactions that simply doesn’t yet exist. It is similar to what we published yesterday about social media account holders with huge followings causing harm.
It is unfortunate that the caveats and limitations that were repeated and were evident in the preprint itself, in the Yale PR news release, in the quotes from the researchers and independent experts in the New York Times and elsewhere, were all ignored.
And with Elon Musk at the helm of X, and Mark Zuckerberg (who has abandoned fact-checking) at the helm of Meta (Facebook, et al), there is not much hope that the reins will be pulled in on such harmful misinterpretation and misinformation anytime soon.
It is definitely not a good idea to publicly release research "pre-prints" before they've been peer reviewed, and I don't mean by one's friends. I understand the pressure to be first with a major finding, but without substantive peer review, there's too much risk of having to call it back. That leads to even more public mistrust which these days medical and health research and their institutions can little afford. JRF
Although I fundamentally agree with "open science" and have favored widespread review prior to "actual" publication since the Peer Review Congress in Prague, the ubiquity and undeserved influence of Social Media "Influencers", sometimes for nefarious reasons, was not on my radar in 1998.
> In today's world, I believe that the publishing of "pre-prints", no matter how many disclaimers and cautionary notes the authors, their PR offices, and mainstream media provide is a net societal negative and should cease.