60% of the side effects of the corona vaccine - not of the vaccine itself

A new and intriguing study examined the rates of reported side effects in clinical trials of corona vaccines and found that most of them are the result of anxiety and negative expectations.

This is called a stabilized effect, and that's how it works

Walla!

health

20/01/2022

Thursday, 20 January 2022, 07:00 Updated: 07:06

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Remember that when the corona vaccines arrived everyone was really under pressure from their side effects?

So this is, how much pressure?

That's the question.

And it has an important meaning.

A new study reveals very interesting data on the cause of about two-thirds of reports of side effects that appeared after receiving the vaccine for corona.

According to a new and intriguing study, researchers claim that the majority of those who report side effects (60 percent of them) have experienced them not as a direct result of the vaccine itself, but as a kind of negative version of the placebo effect.

This effect is called the 'nocebo effect'.

U.S. researchers examined data from 12 clinical trials of Corona vaccines and found that a stabilizing effect was responsible for about 76 percent of all common adverse reactions that occurred after the first vaccine, and 52 percent of those symptoms that appeared after receiving the second dose.

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The study also shows that many of the milder side effects, such as headaches, fatigue and local pain in the arm, are not caused by the vaccine components, but by other factors that the researchers believe contribute to the effect, including anxiety, expectation and an automatic tendency to attribute various pains to the vaccine.

When you expect to feel bad - the chances of that happening increase.

Woman receiving corona vaccine (Photo: Reuven Castro)

In light of their findings, the researchers say that better publicity, which also includes explanations of the stabilizing effect, may improve immunization rates and reduce concerns among hesitants.

The study was led by Dr. Ted Kafchuk, a lecturer in global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Julia Hass, dean of Boston Medical Center in Boston. They analyzed in depth the side effects reported in a dozen clinical trials of Corona vaccines. Both in the experimental group and in the control group.

In all the trials included in this study, the experimental group received sham injections containing saline instead of an active vaccine. They chose not to include in their study the most serious and dangerous side effects such as Blood clots and myocarditis.They summarized their findings in an article published in the journal Jama Network Open.

Headache, fatigue and arm pain - from the vaccine?

The study describes how 35 percent of the subjects who received sham injections reported systemic side effects such as headache and fatigue after the first dose of the vaccine, and 16 percent reported local symptoms (such as local pain, redness or swelling at the injection site in the arm).

As expected, those who received a first dose of the real vaccine were more likely to report side effects.

About 46 percent of them reported systemic symptoms and two-thirds reported arm pain or another local symptom.

What do you know about the vaccine and how much are you afraid of it?

Dr. Moshe Gross vaccinated Corona for the fourth time (Photo: Reuven Castro)

When the researchers examined the reporting of side effects after the second injection, they found that the rate of reports of systemic symptoms such as headache almost doubled among the experimental group compared to the control group (61% in the experimental group versus 32% in the control group).

The gap was even larger in the case of local symptoms and stood at 73 percent in those who received the real vaccine, compared to 12 percent in the placebo group.

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After analyzing the data, the researchers concluded that about two-thirds of the common side effects reported in clinical trials of corona vaccines were due to a permanent effect - especially headaches and fatigue - two side effects explicitly mentioned in the list of side effects in information leaflets and public information.

Are the researchers suggesting that people should be offered less information or less detailed information about the side effects of the vaccine to actually reduce the rate of reports of side effects they may experience as a result of anxiety or a type of over-alertness to symptoms and attribution of common vaccine pain?

In Dr. Kapchuk's case the answer is no. “Most researchers argue that people should be given less information about side effects so as not to raise their anxiety levels.

I think this is a mistake - honesty is the right way. "Kapchuk suggested that along with the full information on possible side effects, they educate the public about the possibility of experiencing similar symptoms following anxiety and negative expectation and explain to them about the 'stabilized effect'.

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• Corona

• Vaccine for corona

• covid-19

• Side Effects