Immune responses after influenza vaccination in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

[barbc56]

Conclusions

The humoral and cellular immune responses upon influenza vaccination were comparable in CFS patients and healthy controls. Putative aberrations in immune responses in CFS patients were not evident for immunity towards influenza. Standard seasonal influenza vaccination is thus justified and, when indicated, should be recommended for patients suffering from CFS.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2172/13/71/abstract



Barb C.:>)

 

[Sushi]

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2172/13/71/abstract
Barb C.:>)

Arg! Too bad some of have severe crashes after flu shots!

They forgot to interview us!

Sushi

 

[barbc56]

If there are reactions it might be coincidental or something else gong on. I haven't had any reactions to any vaccinations I have received and I am lucky in that respect. Now some people even without our illness may feel a bit achy the next day or sore at the injection site. Maybe that might be enough to cause a flare as it doesn't take much for us. Add to that the energy expended getting out to see the doctor, waiting, maybe bad weather and it's a ripe situation for causing a flare. Maybe that factors into the equation. I don't know because some people certainly do get a reaction.

Several years ago I developed a virus which was not the flu. Besides feeling like crap, I also crashed with a flare. I was so sick I realized how much worse I might feel if I really had the flu.

This was just an FYI post and I'm just adding my experience here.

Barb C.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Maybe they measured the wrong stuff? Another recent and related study:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...mmune-function-in-patients-with-cfs-me.20563/

 

[*GG*]

Not interested, no thanks! Who knows, those vaccines might have led to me to CFS? Doubt this will ever be studied, it's a Billion dollar industry!

GG

 

[Little Bluestem]

Arg! Too bad some of have severe crashes after flu shots!

They forgot to interview us!

Sushi

I think all they care about are the humoral and cellular immune responses, not how it makes you feel.

I didn’t take the time to download the .pdf file, so I don‘t know the number of CFS patients in the study. I also don’t know the criteria used to select them and the severity of their illness. Severely ill people tend not to get out and participate in studies. I wonder if some who have more severe immune dysfunction might not have the same immune response.

As is so often the case, I think that this decision needs to be made on an individual basis. My last flu shot was just a few years ago and my immune response seemed the same as my response to the first flu shot that I got the fall after I came down with ME/CFS.

 

[asleep]

This study contradicts itself in the abstract alone. From the results section of the abstract:

Vaccination induced a significant increase in cellular proliferation in CFS patients, but not in healthy controls.

From the conclusions section of the abstract:

The humoral and cellular immune responses upon influenza vaccination were comparable in CFS patients and healthy controls. Putative aberrations in immune responses in CFS patients were not evident for immunity towards influenza.

So there was a significant difference in cellular proliferation effects, yet this is considered "comparable" and non-aberrant?

I'm sure most CFS patients are not concerned so much with whether the vaccine elicits seroconversion, but rather if and how it induces or triggers aberrant effects on their immune systems. Like, perhaps, the increased cellular proliferation that these authors appear to have ignored.

 

[Firestormm]

This study contradicts itself in the abstract alone. From the results section of the abstract:


From the conclusions section of the abstract:


So there was a significant difference in cellular proliferation effects, yet this is considered "comparable" and non-aberrant?

I'm sure most CFS patients are not concerned so much with whether the vaccine elicits seroconversion, but rather if and how it induces or triggers aberrant effects on their immune systems. Like, perhaps, the increased cellular proliferation that these authors appear to have ignored.

I think what they are saying, Asleep, is:

"Putative aberrations in immune responses in CFS patients were not evident for immunity towards influenza."

Whilst there were 'aberrations' in the cells following the jab these did not affect the CFS cohort's ability to defend itself - as a result of the inoculation - against influenza.

So, whilst there might be an initial 'reaction', this reaction does not mean the CFS cohort is at any greater risk of influenza following inoculation than the control.

I think

So maybe it is more in keeping with the paper that Snowleapard referred to above after all: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...mmune-function-in-patients-with-cfs-me.20563/

 

[Sushi]

Of course a lot of us have a 100% effective protection against the flu--an immune system that has forgotten how to "do" flu. I haven't had a cold or the flu in years, and years and....

Sushi

 

[asleep]

I think what they are saying, Asleep, is:



Whilst there were 'aberrations' in the cells following the jab these did not affect the CFS cohort's ability to defend itself - as a result of the inoculation - against influenza.

So, whilst there might be an initial 'reaction', this reaction does not mean the CFS cohort is at any greater risk of influenza following inoculation than the control.

I think

So maybe it is more in keeping with the paper that Snowleapard referred to above after all: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...mmune-function-in-patients-with-cfs-me.20563/

Ok, but that's a rather pointless conclusion. I suspect that the reservation many with CFS have over flu shots has nothing to do with whether it will protect them from the flu and everything to do with whether the shot will exacerbate their illness as an unwanted side-effect due to underlying immune abnormalities. The authors actually identified a potential form of abnormal immune response yet went on to recommend the inoculation.

If the goal of the authors was to assuage such reservations, they failed to even address the relevant concerns.

 

[Firestormm]

Ok, but that's a rather pointless conclusion. I suspect that the reservation many with CFS have over flu shots has nothing to do with whether it will protect them from the flu and everything to do with whether the shot will exacerbate their illness as an unwanted side-effect due to underlying immune abnormalities. The authors actually identified a potential form of abnormal immune response yet went on to recommend the inoculation.

If the goal of the authors was to assuage such reservations, they failed to even address the relevant concerns.

Yep. Although I don't know what their goal was - haven't read the papers. I suspect for those with ME who are at all bothered you are correct - not all are though. For them the greatest threat is to get influenza - because the risk to health is greater.

Of course the influenza vaccine is not as effective as was once it was sold. I gather that even the NHS have had to pay greater attention to the claims made by drug manufacturers to ensure they are more realistic.

And 'reactions' cover a broad canvas of course. Influenza is pretty specific. A cold is not. A cold could be thought of as the vaccination being ineffective when it isn't. A 'reaction' could be anything. It need not be as a result of the jab. Similarly a 'setback' in the symptoms we might attribute to our ME could have nothing to do with the jab.

 

[barbc56]

My doctor wanted me to get the shot because my immune system is supposedly compromised. A shot is not as much as an exposure to the real flu.

If you have an immune system that doesn't recognize colds, how do you know this? It has nothing to do about the fact that you could still get the flu.

 

[jimells]

I remember reading somewhere that only healthy people should expose themselves to vaccines. That sure leaves me out. Is this study suggesting that ill people should now get these vaccines?

Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[taniaaust1]

I suspect that the reservation many with CFS have over flu shots has nothing to do with whether it will protect them from the flu and everything to do with whether the shot will exacerbate their illness as an unwanted side-effect due to underlying immune abnormalities.

Im one who certainly cares whether vaccines I have wil protect me from what they are supposed to protect me from or not. I wouldnt want to be putting foreign things into my body if it wasnt causing the right kind of antibody response (eg doing them for nothing) even if they werent giving me bad reactions. This fact alone is enough to put me off of getting vaccinations as in the past in my case vaccines didnt "take" and had to be done over and over (eg my Hep B vaccine tests keep showing it didnt take.. interesting that was in the same year or the year before I got ME). In the end I still dont know if I'd produced antibodies to the vaccine as I never got tested a third time to see if I had.

There are many different things which can be coming into play which cause us to end up not having vaccines..

 

[ramakentesh]

I wonder which specific cytokines were measured - this may be important.

 

[alex3619]

Immune compromised people, who are by definition sick, are often advised to get vaccinations.

We forget sometimes what a flu vaccine is. They take several of the most likely strains for the coming year, and create a chemical mix containing immune stimulants and pieces (or in some cases weakened virus etc.) and then put this into the body so the immune system can react.

Please note that the two articles cited had different time frames. The abnormal ME responses might only show up later. One big issue for us is how long the vaccine protects us. Evidence is growing that we have a high B cell death rate, and possibly this includes memory cells. We are known to lose a vaccine response completely - we can lose all antibodies to a given pathogen. So for many of us a vaccine only has temporary benefit, and then only for a subset of circulating influenza virus. The real value from vaccines is if immunity is persistant. Then over years of vaccination to different strains you can pick up a suite of resistance. Yet what is the value if you lose that response? Its questionable.

Having said that I think that for some of us it might be a good idea to get vaccinated, especially those who are well enough to hold jobs. Even if it only increases protection for that one season its something. However for any of us who have ever had a bad reaction, why risk it?

Bye, Alex

 

[barbc56]

Here's a good overiew:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00023141.htm

 

[Firestormm]

Here's a good overiew:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00023141.htm

I don't know if this helps, but Charles Shepherd and I were debating these two papers, or rather our reading of them; his concluding comment probably sums things up:

"We obviously have quite a lot of fairly consistent patient evidence to show that a significant minority of people with ME/CFS experience an adverse reaction, sometimes to the point of causing a relapse of their ME/CFS, following flu vaccine. But the jury is still out when it comes the immunology of what may be happening here."
Facebook, yesterday, ME Association: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ME-Association/171411469583186

I have had the 'flu jab' for the last two years and had no reaction. My sister-in-law on the other hand (a health worker and nurse and not with ME), did claim a 'reaction'. Mind you she didn't want the jab in the first place (apparently this is quite typical of the profession - they are known not to get vaccinated I understand) - doesn't like needles for another thing - and had to be 'ambushed' by her doctor into having it!

 

[Holmsey]

I have had the 'flu jab' for the last two years and had no reaction. My sister-in-law on the other hand (a health worker and nurse and not with ME), did claim a 'reaction'. Mind you she didn't want the jab in the first place (apparently this is quite typical of the profession - they are known not to get vaccinated I understand) - doesn't like needles for another thing - and had to be 'ambushed' by her doctor into having it!

Loads of conspiracy theories around inoculation, remember reading after the last big scare, the one that started in Mexico, someone remind me was it Pig Flu, that it came out that the vaccine had been manufactured in a way that was new and novel, with aditives that it was claimed were 'untested'.

Conspiracy aside, I took it and was fine for a day but then had a massive flair in my glands, on the side I was injected I was in pain from my neck to my groin, DS was asking through the MEA site for anyone with adverse reactions and when I mailed he indicated there were quite a few responses just like mine.

 

[Xandoff]

Of course a lot of us have a 100% effective protection against the flu--an immune system that has forgotten how to "do" flu. I haven't had a cold or the flu in years, and years and....

Sushi

I haven't had a Flu or a cold in eight years. I feel like I have the Flu everyday, aches and pains. I dream of having the flu, it was a day at the beach compared to what I deal with now.