Vaccine

A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future. Vaccines can be prophylactic (example: to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (e.g., vaccines against cancer are being investigated).

Risk in developing ME/CFS
According to the 2018 version of The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide Vaccines: "Vaccines currently routinely recommended to the general population in the U.S. have not been shown to cause fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)."

A 2015 complete population study of data from 2009 to 2012 in Norway, following the country's mass vaccination during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, found that vaccination produced no increased risk of CFS/ME. By contrast, infection with influenza more than doubled the risk of developing CFS/ME.

Some have reported developing ME/CFS after receiving vaccinations for foreign travel but a causal relationship has not been shown.

In one case of a 43-year-old man who developed CFS after having five vaccinations, with no previous ill health, Dr. Chris Exley and team at the Birchall Centre at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, in 2008 "proposed that the cause of the CFS in this individual was a heightened immune response, initially to the aluminium in each of the adjuvants and thereafter spreading to other significant body stores of aluminium." However, under this hypothesis, Dr. Exley anticipated that the mass human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program then recently begun in the UK would carry related risks, as that vaccine also uses aluminium-based adjuvant. That was not borne out: a 2013 study concluded there is no evidence the HPV vaccine leads to developing chronic fatigue syndrome.

Risk in developing Gulf War Illness
Vaccinations have been proposed as an etiological factor in Gulf War Illness, especially the mass vaccinations given prior to military deployment.

Vaccination in the presence of elevated cortisol levels can drive cytokine expression toward Th2 dominance.

Publications

 * 2018, Do Vaccines Cause Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)? in The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide

Learn more

 * Vaccine Basics - Health and Human Services
 * Vaccine Types - NIAID
 * Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines - World Health Organization - with a details of vaccines in development
 * Vaccine Storage and Handling - CDC
 * 10 Things to Know about US COVID-19 Vaccine Plans
 * Vaccines Video short - Blausen.com