Persistent misunderstanding
According to Kimmich: an immunologist explains why there are no long-term effects of vaccination
Bayern professional Joshua Kimmich sparked a heated debate with his statements about the corona vaccination.
© Tom Weller / DPA
Bayern professional Joshua Kimmich is not vaccinated against the corona virus. He wants to wait for long-term studies. An argument that many vaccine skeptics use. However, it is limping. Immunologist Carsten Watzl explains why.
Professional footballer Joshua Kimmich has not yet been vaccinated against the corona virus. This has been known since Saturday. The Bayern star is now heavily criticized for this. The main reason for this are the reasons given by Kimmich. He said he had a few personal concerns about the lack of long-term studies, he said on Sky. An argument with which Kimmich is by no means alone, but which lags. It is based on, as the immunologist Carsten Watzl put it to the German Press Agency, “a misunderstanding that persists with many people”. What the misunderstanding lies, he has worked out again in a comprehensive Twitter thread.
Many people understand long-term effects as side effects that only occur many months or years after a vaccination, he writes. So consequences that are not yet foreseeable, since the vaccines, so the argumentation, were developed and approved at breakneck speed. “But that’s wrong!” Writes Watzl. So-called long-term consequences of vaccinations are not health consequences that appear for the first time months or years after the vaccination. These are rare side effects that occur within a few weeks of vaccination. Often, however, these are only associated with the vaccination after a long period of time. Already on Sunday he said to the “DPA” regarding the fear of alleged long-term vaccination consequences: “That does not exist, has never happened before and will not occur with the Covid-19 vaccination either”.
Watzl: “We know the long-term consequences”
It is true that the vaccination creates an immune response. This takes a few weeks. In rare cases there are side effects during this period – after that no more. Because after these weeks, Watzl explains, the vaccine “has disappeared from the body”. It is also true, however, that in the past certain vaccine side effects were only discovered with delay – and then caused a sensation.
For example, there are cases of narcolepsy after vaccination against swine flu. A side effect that occurred within a few weeks after the vaccination, but could only be assigned to a flu vaccine much later. Why? Because they are rare occurrences. In other words, a certain number of vaccinations must be given in order for such rare side effects to occur at all.
In the case of the corona vaccination, however, the situation is different. More than six billion vaccinations have already been carried out worldwide; in Germany alone, more than 100 million doses have been vaccinated so far – and in a relatively short time. The advantage of this exceptional situation is that “even the rarest side effects” would be recognized quickly, the immunologist classifies. And even goes one step further in his assessment. He says: “We know the long-term consequences!”
Lots of Covid vaccinations, lots of knowledge about side effects
These include the rare cases of sinus vein thrombosis but also heart muscle inflammation. The latter occurs quite often, especially in male children and adolescents, even without a vaccination. If this group had only one million vaccinations per year, it would have taken years, according to Watzl, for myocarditis to be recognized as a side effect of the vaccination. “If anything, the Covid-19 vaccines have already been better researched than other vaccinations with regard to long-term effects (rare side effects),” said Watzl.
Thomas Mertens, the head of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), told the “DPA”: “It is clear that there can be no ten-year observational studies when a vaccine is used for almost a year.” This applies not only to every other vaccine that is used again, but also to every new drug, he said. However, he said that when a vaccine is released for human use, there are accompanying studies that look closely at whether it can cause serious side effects.
“In addition to the approval studies, we know from the accompanying studies that there were only a few side effects, all of which occurred quite a short time after the vaccination,” he said, following Watzl’s remarks. Scientists agree that side effects that occur late do not occur or were “an extremely rare rarity in individual vaccines”. Suspected side effects are also collected and evaluated in various ways, including by the Paul Ehrlich Institute. (You can read again here how this works)
Lauterbach: “No long-term effects after vaccinations”
“What do people who want to wait for long-term studies want to wait for?” Asks Watzl. “An even rarer side effect that only occurs in a certain population group in 1 million people vaccinated?” Something like that can never be ruled out. But something else, according to Watzl: That a common side effect now occurs that will only be recognized in a year is ruled out. “The vaccinated will not all become sterile and will not all develop cancer next year,” he concludes. In contrast, the so-called long-term consequences of Covid-19 are known very well.
This is how other experts classify it. “The probability that unexpected long-term consequences will occur is extremely low, almost negligible,” said the cardiologist Jonas Zacher from the German Sport University Cologne on the TV broadcaster Sky. He spoke of a “very clear recommendation”: “The risk from a vaccination is much lower than the risk from a Covid 19 infection.” Health expert Karl Lauterbach shared Watzl’s classification on Twitter. The thread explains very well why there are no long-term consequences of vaccinations, even against Covid-19, that would only be recognized late. This is important because many vaccination hesitators like Joshua Kimmich are afraid of it. “Covid causes long-term damage, the vaccinations do not.”