Fact Check-There is no evidence that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine causes Alzheimer’s disease

At the time of publication of this article, the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech has not been shown to cause neurodegenerative diseases such as prion disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Lugeric’s disease (ALS). Experts say that articles distributed online do not otherwise provide valid evidence.

Late April 2021, The Gateway Pundit (Here) And National File (Here) Published an article on a paper linking Pfizer’s vaccine against the new coronavirus to neurodegenerative diseases.You can see Facebook posts sharing screenshots from these outlets Here And Here ..

A paper on the subject entitled “COVID-19 RNA-based vaccines and risk of prion disease” was published in the journal “Microbiology and Infectious Diseases” in January, “J. Bad Classen, MD.”

Over the years, Classen has published papers and articles against the use of vaccines (Here) And his work are shared by vaccine skeptics such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.).Here).

The central claim of this paper is that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine contains sequences that are believed to “aggregate TDP-43 and FUS in a prion-based conformation, leading to the development of common neurodegenerative drugs. It is. ” [sic] sick. In other words, a particular “letter” in the vaccine’s RNA code can cause changes in the way certain human proteins (ie, TDP-43 and FUS) fold, causing disease (he says).Here).

Evidence does not support this claim at the time this fact check was issued, according to experts consulted by Reuters.

A Pfizer spokeswoman said, “There is no evidence” when asked by Reuters if the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine could lead to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine uses new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. This technology includes a simple genetic command that allows human cells to temporarily produce proteins that mimic a small portion of the new coronavirus. The presence of these viral proteins activates the immune system. The vaccine does not contain the actual virus (Here).

Prions are accidentally folded brain proteins that can cause mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, chronic wasting disease of deer and elk, and sheep scrapie (Here).

These infectious agents are also a rare but important cause of dementia, and scientists have found that the processes involved in these diseases, in which prion proteins reshape and stick to each other to form polymers that damage the brain, are also Alzheimer’s. It is said to occur with common dementia, such as illness, and Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases (Here).

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, and patients gradually lose the ability to think and care for themselves. Current drugs treat only the symptoms (Here).

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lugeric’s disease, is a rare neuropathy that affects nerve cells that are primarily involved in the control of voluntary muscle movements such as walking and conversation. It is almost always exacerbated by respiratory failure, with no cure and eventually death (Here).

After reviewing a treatise that is less than three pages long and provides only three sentences explaining the methodology, Dr. Albert Hoffman, a clinical epidemiologist at Harvard School of Public Health (Here), Called Reuters, saying that the paper did not provide evidence of the author’s findings.

Hoffman also emphasized that people at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, that is, people over the age of 60, are also at high risk of developing a serious illness with COVID-19. Therefore, he said the need for their vaccine was the most urgent, reflecting a statement from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Here).

According to the American Alzheimer’s Disease Association, the currently available COVID-19 vaccine is safe for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (Here).

Dr. Irina Skyler Scott, a neurologist at Stanford Hospital and Clinic, specializing in Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive and behavioral disorders.Profile .stanford.edu / 242780), Calling Reuters, he pointed out that Klassen’s claim was “overkill, to say the least,” and that neither the two proteins he was discussing, TDP-43 or FUS, were associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Skylar-Scott states that there is no evidence to associate any of the COVID-19 vaccines with Alzheimer’s disease, and patients with Alzheimer’s disease are particularly vulnerable to the new coronavirus because the infection can endanger cognition. I emphasized that there is.

“Once you get sick, you don’t always recover to your previous mental baseline,” Skyler Scott said of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, saying that high-risk populations would benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.

Regarding ALS, the ALS Association continues to consult with ALS medical professionals nationwide on its website, stating that it is “encouraged by previous vaccine safety and efficacy data” (Here).

A February 4 letter from the ALS Association to the US Department of Health, citing data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs showing that veterans with ALS are more likely to die from COVID-19 than veterans without ALS. States as follows. Get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible “(Here).

“ALS deprives us of the ability to walk, speak, swallow, and eventually breathe. Most people with ALS die of respiratory failure. This situation is exacerbated by the respiratory effects of COVID.” Is written in the letter.

Cases specializing in both prion disease and Alzheimer’s disease Dr. Brian Appleby, a neurologist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (Here), Called Reuters, saying that there is no evidence that the mRNA vaccine causes neurodegenerative diseases, and that the journal article in question uses the term “quite loose” to refer to false folding disorders of other proteins. It was.

“On its own, it seems speculative,” Appleby said, “there is no model related to the study itself,” and “there is certainly no data from vaccine manufacturers that are concerned about this.”

US Food and Drug Administration briefing document on both Pfizer vaccinesHere) And Moderna vaccine (Here) Also uses mRNA technology and makes no mention of the development of neurodegenerative diseases during clinical trials involving tens of thousands of volunteers.

“We recognize that there is no evidence that vaccination contributes to the development of prion-related diseases or neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer’s disease,” a CDC spokesperson told Reuters. ..

It is worth noting that the last paragraph of Krassen’s paper states: “The current epidemic of COVID-19 is actually [sic] A biological weapons attack partially released by an individual US government, citing two sources written by Classen himself.The same claim has been supported by a larger “planned” conspiracy theory uncovered by Reuters. Here , Here And Here ..

As reported Here By USA Today, Classen proposed in 1999 that the flu vaccine would cause type 1 diabetes (Here), Claims disproved by the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Safety Institute Here ..

When asked to comment by email, Classen told Reuters: “Scientific criticism should be left to scientists” (Reuters did throughout this article) and Reuters “did not qualify to criticize my work.” He provided no further evidence or comment on the findings of his dissertation.

Reuters sought comment on both microbiology and infectious diseases, as well as the journal and publisher of the treatise, SciVision, but did not receive a response.

“It’s hard to believe that this paper has survived the peer-reviewed process,” said Dr. David Irani, a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.Here), Told Reuters by email.

In response to Appleby, Irani said the author of the paper “does not provide details about how his analysis was performed, nor does it provide actual data for the reader to evaluate for himself.” ..

“It’s full of ambiguous phrases such as” possible “and” possible “that enhance speculative tone,” Irani said. “Strengthen yourself.” He explained that he “stuck into a completely unfounded territory” because of the reference. Previous publications in a way that identifies him as an advocate of anti-vaccine advocacy rather than an objective scientific researcher. “

“Experience over the last nine months has certainly shown that RNA vaccines against COVID-19 can cause side effects in some people, but there is no evidence associated with neurodegenerative diseases,” Irani said. He concluded.

verdict

error. At the time of publication of this article, there is no evidence that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine leads to prion disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or ALS.

This article was created by the Reuters fact-checking team.Read more about our work to fact check social media posts Here ..