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A German man redefined what it means to be a “man with a mission.” A 62-year-old man from Magdeburg deliberately received 217 coronavirus vaccinations over a 29-month period, against national vaccine recommendations, according to a new study. This is on average he takes one jab every four days.
In the process, he became a walking experiment to examine what happens to the immune system when repeatedly vaccinated against the same pathogen.a correspondence A paper published Monday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases outlines his case and says his “overvaccination” did not result in any negative health effects, but could also significantly improve or worsen the immune response. I concluded that it wasn’t.
Man whose name is not mentioned in the correspondence In accordance with German privacy regulations, it reported receiving 217 coronavirus vaccinations between June 2021 and November 2023. Of these, 134 were confirmed by prosecutors and vaccination center documents. The remaining 83 people were self-reported, according to the study.
Dr. Emily Happy Miller, an assistant professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who did not follow the guidelines, said: “This clearly did not follow any guidelines and caused the spread of so many new coronaviruses.” “This is a very rare case where someone has been vaccinated.” Participate in research.
The man did not report any vaccine-related side effects and had no previous experience of COVID-19, as evidenced by repeated antigen and PCR tests from May 2022 to November 2023. Not yet. About his excessive vaccination program.
“Maybe he was protected enough by the first three vaccinations that he didn’t get the coronavirus,” Miller said. “We also don’t know anything about his actions.”
Dr Kilian Schober, senior author of the new study and researcher at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, said: It is important to remember that this is an individual case study and the results cannot be generalized. He said that.
The researchers also say they do not support over-vaccination as a strategy to boost immunity.
“Whether you get three doses of the vaccine or 200 doses, the benefit is not that great,” Shober said.
According to his vaccination history, the man first received the coronavirus vaccine in June 2021. That same year, he received 16 vaccinations at a center in eastern Saxony.
He stepped up his efforts in 2022, rolling up his sleeves for right- and left-arm shots almost every day in January, totaling 48 shots for the month.
He continued after that, hitting 34 shots in February and six more in March. Around this time, German Red Cross workers in Dresden became suspicious and alerted other vaccination centers, urging them to call the police if they saw the man again, CNN affiliate RTL reported. report In April 2022.
In early March, he showed up at a vaccination center in the town of Eilenburg and was detained by police. According to RTL, the suspect is suspected of selling vaccination cards to third parties. This was at a time when many European countries needed it. Certificate of vaccination For access to public places and travel.
According to the findings, prosecutors in Magdeburg opened an investigation into the man on suspicion of fraudulently issuing vaccination cards and forging documents, but ultimately did not file criminal charges.
Researchers learned about this man in the news and contacted him in May 2022 through the prosecutor who was investigating his case. At this point he had been shot 213 times.
He agreed to provide medical information, blood and saliva samples. He also went on to receive four more COVID-19 vaccinations against the medical advice of researchers, Shober said.
Researchers analyzed his blood chemistry and found no abnormalities related to overvaccination. They also looked at various markers to assess how his adaptive immune system was functioning, according to the study.
The adaptive immune system is the part of the immune system that learns how to recognize and respond to specific pathogens when it encounters them throughout life, Miller said. There are two major cell types in the adaptive immune system: T cells and B cells.
In chronic diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B, frequent exposure to pathogens can cause immune cells to become fatigued and lose their ability to effectively fight pathogens, Shober said. In theory, overvaccination could have a similar effect.
But that’s not what researchers found. According to the study, over-vaccination in this case increased the quantity (number of T and B cell products) but did not affect the quality of the adaptive immune system.
“If you think of the immune system as an army, there are more soldiers, but the soldiers are the same,” Shober says.
The man received a total of eight vaccine formulations, including mRNA vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, a vector-based vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, and a recombinant protein vaccine from Sanofi.
“The observation that this unusual overvaccination did not cause any noticeable side effects indicates that the drug is well tolerated,” Shober wrote in the paper. Ta. news release.
While very interesting from a scientific perspective, individual case studies like this should always be taken with a grain of salt, Miller said. Public health recommendations based on very large randomized controlled trials are what people should look to for guidance, he added.
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“I don’t think any doctor or public health official would recommend what this gentleman did. This is really uncharted territory,” Miller said. “Consult your doctor and follow the recommended vaccination schedule. That’s the best way to protect yourself from coronavirus and stay healthy and safe.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends COVID-19 vaccination for everyone in the United States 6 months of age and older, according to the vaccination schedule listed in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Website.Last week, the CDC Updated guidance A booster vaccination of the current coronavirus vaccine is recommended for people aged 65 and over.
Less than a quarter of adults and just 13% of children in the U.S. have received the most recently recommended coronavirus vaccine, according to . CDC data.
