But a study published online on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) puts these views into perspective: In twelve placebo-controlled vaccine studies, around a third of the subjects complained about “side effects” affecting the whole body, despite the sham vaccination.
The meta-analysis by Julia Haas from the Harvard Medical School Placebo Trial Program (Boston/USA) included 45,380 participants in twelve randomized placebo-controlled Covid-19 vaccine trials. Without the subjects or doctors being able to tell the difference, some of the subjects over the age of 16 in the studies had received a Covid 19 vaccine (22,802 people), the rest (22,578 people) a placebo.
“After the first dose, systemic adverse drug reactions (ADRs) occurred in 35.2 percent of the 22,578 placebo recipients. Those affected reported headache and fatigue most frequently, at 19.3 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively. Over at least one 16 percent of the placebo group reported local events such as pain at the injection site, reddening or swelling. After the second placebo injection, 31.8 percent of the placebo recipients still had nocebo reactions,” wrote the Deutsches Ärzteblatt on Tuesday. The “nocebo effect” is a negative effect of a dummy drug.
Naturally, the people who actually received an experimental vaccine reported more adverse reactions. 46.3 percent reported at least one adverse drug effect affecting the whole body, 66.7 percent reported at least one local vaccine reaction, such as redness or swelling at the injection site.
“The ratio between the placebo and vaccine groups showed that nocebo effects accounted for 76 percent of the systemic adverse drug reactions after the first dose in the group of Covid-19 vaccine recipients, as well as for 51.8 percent of them undesired effects after the second partial vaccination”, wrote Julia Haas and her co-authors. It can be assumed that the negative placebo effect also occurs in the group of study participants who received the real vaccine, the scientists calculated.
In any case, vaccination campaigns should also point out that such studies often report adverse effects, even with placebo, emphasized the researchers. Non-specific symptoms such as headaches and tiredness are often listed in the product information and instructions for use after the vaccine has been approved. One of the authors, Ted Kaptchuk (Harvard Medical School), postulated that this led to people incorrectly attributing similar symptoms to a vaccination.
Source: Nachrichten
