Some of the most popular but untrue stories and footage of the week include this one. It’s not legal, though it’s widely shared on social media. Associated Press checked them. Here are the facts:
CLAIM: Humans may be more susceptible to serious COVID-19 diseases after being vaccinated.
THE FACTS: An Instagram post with more than 4,000 likes falsely claims that people who receive the COVID-19 vaccine may experience worse symptoms if they are exposed to the virus.
“Studies have warned that COVID-19 vaccines can cause serious illness if they are exposed to the virus through pathogenic initiation and immune enhancement,” reads the report, shared by Joseph Mercola, a physician who runs a website for natural health management.
But scientists told The Associated Press that such effects are simply not shown in the data. Research has shown that the Pfizer and Modern vaccines are 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 diseases. It is true that some vaccines, in rare cases, can later cause serious illness, but scientists say that the effect – known as antibody-dependent enhancement – has not yet been seen with COVID-19 vaccines.
Such improvement has occurred with older shots and more recently with a dengue virus vaccine. There is ‘abundant evidence’ that the immunization-enhanced disease ‘will be no problem’ with the COVID-19 shots, writes dr. Paul Offit, director of a vaccine training center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in a report to the National. Institute of Health.
The Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been tested on thousands of people, some of whom were probably later exposed to the virus. The effect was not seen in the trials.
The AP asked to see the studies mentioned in Mercola’s claim, and its organization responded with links. All of the studies were published before Pfizer and Moderna released data from their late-phase trials, and some of the studies specifically contradict his claim.
Dr. Timothy Cardozo, associate professor at NYU Langone Health, was the author of one of the studies Mercola cited.
The Pfizer and Moderna data that came out after he published his study greatly reduced his concern about improving the antibody, he said in a statement to the AP. He also noted that his paper does not state whether COVID-19 vaccines should be taken or avoided.
Mercola did not respond to a request for comment. If Mercola’s message was accurate, vaccinated people would have had more infections than those who had not been vaccinated, says Dr. Matthew Woodruff, an immunologist at Emory University. This has not yet been the case.
“We have been vaccinating those people for six months now, with continued exposure, and no emerging evidence of improved diseases,” Woodruff said.