A 62-year-old man living in Germany decided to receive 217 coronavirus vaccinations over 29 months for “personal reasons”. But, somewhat surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects from over-vaccination. Newly published case study lancet infection.
Of course, this case is just one person, so the results cannot be extrapolated to the general population. However, these contradict widespread concerns among researchers that overexposure to vaccination could lead to a weakened immune response. Some experts have raised this concern amid debate over how often people should receive a booster shot against COVID-19.
When chronically exposed to disease-causing bacteria, “there are signs that certain types of immune cells, known as T cells, become fatigued and release less pro-inflammatory messenger substances,” the researchers say. say: Lead author of the study, Kilian Schober from the Microbiology Laboratory in the Department of Clinical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene. This, along with other effects, can cause “immune tolerance,” leading to a weaker response that is less effective at fighting pathogens, Shober explained in a news release.
This German man’s history of extreme overvaccination seemed like a good case to look for evidence of such resistance and weak responses. Shober and his colleagues learned about the man’s case from news headlines. Authorities launched a fraud investigation against the man, who was confirmed to have administered 130 vaccinations over a nine-month period, but no criminal charges were filed. “We then contacted him and recommended that he undergo various tests in Erlangen.” [a city in Bavaria]”He was very interested in doing so.” The man then reported to researchers an additional 87 vaccinations, including a total of eight different vaccine formulations, including an updated booster. It was included.
Researchers were able to collect blood and saliva samples from the man during his 214th to 217th vaccinations. They compared his immune response to that of 29 people who received a standard three-dose series.
Despite receiving a dizzying number of vaccines, the man never reported any side effects from the vaccines, and laboratory tests showed no abnormalities associated with over-vaccination. Researchers looked in detail at his response to the vaccine and found that while some aspects of his protection were stronger, overall his immune response was much lower than that of people who took far fewer doses. It was discovered that the reaction is functionally similar. Antibody levels in his blood, stimulated by the vaccine, rose after the new dose but then began to decline, similar to what was seen in the control group.
The ability of his antibodies to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be five to 11 times higher than controls, but the researchers said this was not due to a more potent antibody, but rather a higher amount of antibodies. It was pointed out that this was due to Specific subsets of immune cells, namely B cells and T effector cells trained against SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, were elevated compared to controls. But they seemed to be working fine. As another type of control, the researchers also looked at the men’s immune response to Epstein-Barr virus, an unrelated virus that causes mononucleosis. They found that unlimited vaccination had no negative effect on the response to the virus, suggesting that there was no negative effect on the immune response in general.
Finally, multiple types of tests showed that the man had never been infected with SARS-CoV-2. However, the researchers noted that this may be due to the precautions the man took in addition to the 217 vaccinations.
“In summary, our case report shows that overvaccination for SARS-CoV-2 does not cause adverse events, does not have a strong positive or negative impact on the intrinsic quality of the adaptive immune response, and does not induce spike-specific ” concluded the authors. “Importantly, we do not advocate over-vaccination as a strategy to enhance adaptive immunity,” they added.
This story was originally ars technica.