US study suggests two thirds of Covid jab reactions are not caused by the vaccine

Tommika · 18/01/2022 23:54

@NotTerfNorCis

Any thoughts on this? www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/18/nocebo-effect-two-thirds-of-covid-jab-reactions-not-caused-by-vaccine-study-suggests

More than two-thirds of the common side-effects people experience after a Covid jab can be attributed to a negative version of the placebo effect rather than the vaccine itself, researchers claim.

Personally, the aches in muscles I didn't know I had, and the nighttime fever and pain that got tangled up with dreams, didn't feel very psychosomatic to me. I'm not someone who worries about vaccines - I have the flu jab every year with no ill effects.

It just seems a really odd conclusion for them to come up with.

It refers to people taking part in the clinical trials, a portion of whom had placebo injections not the actual vaccines. Therefore a portion of the reported side effects in the clinical trial were not caused by the vaccine as it had not been given

In each trial, those in the placebo arm were given injections of inactive salt solution instead of vaccine.

GrumpyPanda · 19/01/2022 00:10

@NotTerfNorCis

Any thoughts on this? www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/18/nocebo-effect-two-thirds-of-covid-jab-reactions-not-caused-by-vaccine-study-suggests

More than two-thirds of the common side-effects people experience after a Covid jab can be attributed to a negative version of the placebo effect rather than the vaccine itself, researchers claim.

Personally, the aches in muscles I didn't know I had, and the nighttime fever and pain that got tangled up with dreams, didn't feel very psychosomatic to me. I'm not someone who worries about vaccines - I have the flu jab every year with no ill effects.

It just seems a really odd conclusion for them to come up with.

Not odd at all, from the description it's a conclusion that's solidly data-based.

And you don't have to be a rabid anti-vaxxer to experience a placebo or nocebo effect. IIRC placebo effects have even been documented in cases when people were explicitly told beforehand they'd be given a placebo without effective ingredients. So in the case of Corona vaxxination, just the fact of the setting being so different from/more dramatic than an annual flu shot might be enough to cause a reaction in you. Or then again, obviously, you just might have been in the one third of cases experiencing genuine side effects.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 19/01/2022 00:14

I wouldn't say "arm pain" was a nocebo effect because people had it after the saline injection too.

I would suggest that people had arm pain as a result of having a needle stuck into their arm and a small volume of liquid injected into the muscle...

Totallydefeated · 19/01/2022 00:18

The level/incidence of effect is in line with the incidence of placebo/nocebo effect generally, so no really surprises. Of course, the placebo effect will also be in play with the vaccinations too, shame that hasn’t been studied as a counterbalance!

SantaClawsServiette · 19/01/2022 01:37

I don't think this is at all unusual. The nocebo effect is very powerful, not just with this.

And in general, it is really common for people to attribute things that would have happened anyway to some specific event. The only way to rule that stuff out is with statistical data.

That doesn't mean people don't have real effects. I think pain at site of injection is quite common. I was sick with a fever and sweats for two days, unable to get out of bed, after my first vaccination, I don't think that was likely psychosomatic.

Kokeshi123 · 19/01/2022 02:42

Personally, the aches in muscles I didn't know I had, and the nighttime fever and pain that got tangled up with dreams, didn't feel very psychosomatic to me. I'm not someone who worries about vaccines - I have the flu jab every year with no ill effects.

Look, it's not a personal attack on you. It's not saying all the responses to the vaccine were psychosomatic, only that some of them were (which is not at all surprising and is common sense, basically).

PAFMO · 19/01/2022 05:38

Of course it's not an odd conclusion. If this weren't about the Covid vaccine which triggers strong feelings on both sides, people would say "well d'urrrr" Enough is known about the placebo effect with many many medicines and treatments to know it's (bizarrely maybe) very real. So it stands to reason that the opposite is also true.

garlictwist · 19/01/2022 05:39

I was fully expecting to have side effects and had absolutely none. So how do you explain that? If there were such a thing as placebo effects then you'd think that I would have felt them.

Squleamish · 19/01/2022 05:49

Sounds reasonable. But I wonder why the Guardian hasn't at some point also run an article on the estimated gross under-reporting of side effects on the yellow card and VAERS systems, too (far greater than the nocebo effect). You know, just for balance...? Also, I'd imagine that this would apply more to the less severe effects. As pp have said, it's much harder to nocebo yourself into fevers, severe pain or of course the rare but serious ones like myocarditis and clotting issues, than it is to have localised soreness or slight shiveriness as nocebo.

LemonViolet · 19/01/2022 06:05

Also, just because something is placebo/nocebo or psychosomatic doesn’t mean it isn’t real. It’s not a conscious decision to have that experience. It’s not something you have control over.

PAFMO · 19/01/2022 06:26

@Squleamish

Sounds reasonable. But I wonder why the Guardian hasn't at some point also run an article on the estimated gross under-reporting of side effects on the yellow card and VAERS systems, too (far greater than the nocebo effect). You know, just for balance...? Also, I'd imagine that this would apply more to the less severe effects. As pp have said, it's much harder to nocebo yourself into fevers, severe pain or of course the rare but serious ones like myocarditis and clotting issues, than it is to have localised soreness or slight shiveriness as nocebo.

There's been lots about people attributing every ache and pain to the vaccine? And of course the thousands of articles about how you are far MORE likely to suffer temporary and not serious myocarditis from Covid infection itself or even spontaneously than from the vaccine. It's a real shame that people have been scared into having their vaccine due to myocarditis lies. If I remember correctly, studies have shown that the cases of clotting incidences were no higher when looking at the number of people vaccinated than would occur in a general population of equal number.

110APiccadilly · 19/01/2022 07:14

It seems likely to me. But then it also seems likely to me that a lot of long Covid is also caused by the nocebo effect. As with this, it would probably mainly be the less serious stuff - aches and pains and tiredness.

One caveat (maybe they dealt with this in the study) - the placebo treatment was a saline injection IIRC, and I would have thought that could cause some aches and pains immediately after just by being an injection. So I hope they've dealt with that.

ashorterday · 19/01/2022 07:34

DS worked at the vaccine centre and they had plenty of people fainting or throwing up after the vaccine - I imagine that's the sort of thing that could easily be down to anxiety about the vaccine rather than an effect of it.

Original poster

NotTerfNorCis · 19/01/2022 07:41

Thanks for your responses, everyone. I suppose I just felt that the study results were very counter-intuitive, given the reaction I had (zero chance that was psychosomatic) and that some people I know have reported. I can just imagine some people taking the results of this study to disparage people who do have side-effects from the vaccine. ('You don't REALLY feel ill, there's a 66% chance you're imagining it.')

Perhaps it depends on how severe the reaction was? A mild headache is not in the same league as the thumping headaches and severe body aching people I know have reported.

OP posts:

PermanentTemporary · 19/01/2022 07:47

The problem here is that people dismiss psychosomatic and mental symptoms as somehow moral flaws, or refuse to provide help, or the person rejects what would actually help. Mentally based symptoms are real. If people got effective support for them there might be less distress whrn something turns out to have a psychological basis.

heldinadream · 19/01/2022 07:53

I suppose I just felt that the study results were very counter-intuitive, - that's why we need data and studies. Intuition can be right, wrong, muddled, mixed, anything. Intuition tells us how we feel about a thing, which is one kind of usefulness. Data and scientific conclusions tell us actual measurable trends and results, which has another kind of usefulness.

MoirasWigStand · 19/01/2022 08:06

@NotTerfNorCis

Thanks for your responses, everyone. I suppose I just felt that the study results were very counter-intuitive, given the reaction I had (zero chance that was psychosomatic) and that some people I know have reported. I can just imagine some people taking the results of this study to disparage people who do have side-effects from the vaccine. ('You don't REALLY feel ill, there's a 66% chance you're imagining it.')

Perhaps it depends on how severe the reaction was? A mild headache is not in the same league as the thumping headaches and severe body aching people I know have reported.

That’s your misunderstanding of placebo and nice I. They aren’t imagined symptoms, they are very real. Real pain, real headaches, real fever. But th et aren’t caused by the vaccine they are caused by a placebo and psychosomatic response in to ur body which you have no control over.

It doesn’t mean they are saying people are imagining things or making it up. You have no idea if your fever was psychosomatic or r from vaccine as try e result is the same, a real fever

Original poster

NotTerfNorCis · 19/01/2022 08:14

No study is perfect though, is it? Could the power of suggestion be at play? Could the fact of being asked about symptoms by a doctor or scientist make people more likely to experience them? This isn't objective data. It's subjective by definition.

OP posts:

FinallyHere · 19/01/2022 08:16

didn't feel very psychosomatic to me

One definition of psychosomatic is

'relating to the interaction of mind and body.
"hypnosis involves powerful but little-understood psychosomatic interactions"'

My understanding is that by definition, it would not be possible to 'feel' the difference between 'real' and psychosomatic symptoms.

That would be the very point of psychosomatic symptoms, that they are indistinguishable from any other kinds of symptom.

Drivingish · 19/01/2022 08:25

I'm sure there are psychosomatic reactions but the numbers sound extremely high, that's what doesn't ring true. I wonder what the results would be if they spent more time finding out people's expectations beforehand and matching those to the results. For example, for my first flu vaccine I wasn't expecting any side effects (beside sore arm) as everyone close to me who'd had it had no side effects and I was fit and well, so it was a huge surprise when I felt really ill and exhausted for 2 days after. The same happened with the first covid vaccine, DH and parents had it with no side effects, I was expecting nothing and I had about 2 days of feeling very rough and not being able to get out of bed. Maybe the scientists would say I'm more suggestible then but both times it came as a shock to me so I'm not sure how it would be psychosomatic.