Immediate onset signatures of autoimmune diseases after vaccination

Abstract

Severe adverse events, including autoimmune diseases, have been noted in some individuals following vaccination. It is still unknown whether a subset of these autoimmune disease adverse events (ADAE) is triggered by the immunization and is not background chance occurrences. Only a small fraction of adverse events experienced by vaccinees has been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. In this study, ADAEs within VAERS are examined. The frequency of autoimmune disease adverse reactions reported immediately following vaccination was compared to the background population adverse event frequency. The frequency of immediate-onset autoimmune diseases, extracted from VAERS, arisen after vaccination was found to exceed the expected background occurrences. Vaccinees who receive a second COVID-19 mRNA vaccination dose 3 weeks after the first dose appear to experience an increased number of ADAE. Furthermore, human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis A, and hepatitis B vaccines exhibit distinctive patterns of associations with autoimmune diseases. The potential role of vaccine aluminum adjuvant, included in these vaccines, cannot be ruled out as contributing to ADAE. VAERS data illustrate immediate onset correlations for multiple autoimmune diseases across various vaccines. Autoimmune diseases immediate temporal onset associations that occur following COVID-19 mRNA and adenoviral vaccinations are predicted to occur with similar frequencies for all mRNA and adenoviral vaccines and therapeutics. Taken together, removal of aluminum adjuvants from HPV, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B vaccines, among others, should be considered in the effort to reduce the occurrence of immediate-onset autoimmune diseases.