Articles like that are always interesting to read. Might be some truth to it but I'll wait and see. I agree with you on being aware of advice from the CDC and following it, but anti-vaxxers will disregard information from such sources, not trusting any government related organization.
Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX
I've done some more reading. Autoimmune disease is in rare instances associated with COVID, both the disease and the vaccine. A woman I went to high school actually was one of the few who probably died of an autoimmune disease caused by the vaccine, or that's what her doctors thought anyway.
Anyway, I think the risk described in Dilbert's article by Berenson, and more so in Uversky et al's paper (my link), is overstated. Uversky says that countries where a higher % of the population is vaccinated have seen a bigger increase in autoimmune disease. That sounds kind of anecdotal to me. Probably the best study looking at this issue, involving millions of people in Hong Kong, was done by Peng et al.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37637754/
Peng concluded that COVID vaccination probably protects from autoimmune disease. The reason most likely is that getting a bad COVID infection is less likely if you've been vaccinated. And severe COVID disease is more likely to lead to an autoimmune disease than the vaccine.
I'm not sure how significant increased production of the IgG4 antibody is either. IgG4 may even be protective against autoimmune disease in some instances. But admittedly it can also be associated with increased probability of disease, notably a condition called "IgG4-Related Disease." And it's hard to know whether the IgG4 is actually playing a causative role, or if it's just a side effect.
These autoimmune diseases are rare anyway, regardless of a person's vaccine status.
There's a series of IgG antibodies, called IgG1, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4. IgG1, IgG2, and IgG3 are much more effective at fighting disease than IgG4. The human body initially generates more IgG1 through IgG3 in response to a disease. Then later on IgG4 kicks in, and has the result of muting immune response. Beekeepers typically have high levels of IgG4 compared to IgG1 through IgG3, probably as a protective measure against developing a severe immune reaction to stings.
Normally IgG4 antibodies would comprise less than 5% of the total IgG series in the body. However, after the 3rd COVID shot, on average that number is 20%, and it's over 50% in about a quarter of the population. I'd think if IgG1, IgG2 and IgG3 comprised 80%, you'd still be getting decent additional protection from the COVID vaccine against severe disease from antibodies, not to mention additional protection from T cell response.
Increased levels of IgG4 antibodies do appear to be associated with reduced effectiveness of pertussis, HIV and malaria vaccines, although, again, is the antibody the cause or an effect of something else?
So anyway, like you say the jury's out. I just got my 6th shot, so have plenty of time to wait and follow developments before the next one.