Fact check: Misinformation and misdirection in the ABC/RMIT fact checks 01: Shingles
Shingles not caused by mRNA shots? Epidemiological evidence says there is a link.
One common technique for dishonest fact checks is to assess a claim that people are not making, in order to cast doubt on a claim that is true.
This is classic misdirection.
For instance, this ABC article of early August 2022 debunks the connection between the vaccines and shingles, by connecting it to monkeypox:
The RMIT fact check they are referencing which was published 9 August 2022 continues this misdirection in an article that contains no link to the original article or website they say that they are fact checking:
They then rubbish the claim (not the claim they are supposedly fact checking) that the experimental mRNA injections caused shingles outbreaks:
In fact the systemic review does not say that the vaccines do not cause shingles, it says this:
Conclusion: We could not establish definite link but there may be possible association between COVID-19 vaccine and shingles. Large-scale studies may help to understand the cause-effect relationship.
Epidemiological link
But what has now been established as of August 25 2022 in a Japanese study of a single case is that there is a clear epidemiological link between the mRNA shots and shingles. This study also establishes a clear temporal cause and effect relationship:
Large Cohort November 2022 study
Furthermore medical researcher Dr Jessica Rose has looked at a large cohort November 2022 study which finds no link between the mRNA shots and shingles, and she says this study has many problems: there is no control group of unvaccinated individuals in this study, they ascribe increases in VAERS to overreporting (considering the pressure exerted upon doctors who doubted the mRNA shots, this is quite a ludicrous claim), they excluded anyone who had shingles in the last 240 days (an arbitrarily long period of time) which possibly excludes those whose shingles might be reactivated by the vaccine, and the study design itself is highly questionable.
The study design is peculiar to say the least, and almost seems cherry-picked to get the right conclusions, considering the fact that the shingles side effect that afflicted the man in the Japanese study had endured for over 88 days, for the control group is also the study group:
This cohort study used a self-controlled risk interval (SCRI) design to compare the risk of herpes zoster in a risk interval of 30 days after COVID-19 vaccination or up to the date of the second vaccine dose with a control interval remote from COVID-19 vaccination (defined as 60-90 days after the last recorded vaccination date for each individual, allowing for a 30-day washout period between control and risk intervals). A supplemental cohort analysis was used to compare the risk of herpes zoster after COVID-19 vaccination with the risk of herpes zoster after influenza vaccination among 2 historical cohorts who received an influenza vaccine in the prepandemic period (January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2019) or the early pandemic period (March 1, 2020, to November 30, 2020).
Considering the possible length of a herpes zoster side effect, which could endure for more than 90 days, and the unspoken possibility that the influenza vaccines might also cause the same side effect, this study seems designed to find what they want to find.
What I think is the major flaw in the study’s design and conclusions is that it was the third shot, the second booster, in other words, that seems to have caused this particular side effect in the people I knew personally.
They are only looking at the first two shots in this study, and the long period of time between the second shot and the ‘control’ seems to rule out those who had the third shot.
The study’s conclusion is this:
In this study, there was no association found between COVID-19 vaccination and an increased risk of herpes zoster infection
In any case, the question Jessica Rose says they should be asking is this:
“Is there an increased risk of varicella-zoster virus re-activation after COVID-19 injection?”
After all, Herpes Zoster is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus, not a new infection.
CONCLUSION
According to the Japanese study of a single case there is epidemiological evidence that shingles outbreaks can be connected to the vaccines both temporally in that the outbreaks occurred and worsened after vaccination, and in the form of the vaccine encoded spike protein being found in the lesions. According to Jessica Rose the large cohort study of November 2022 which finds no link has serious design flaws and no unvaccinated control group, and was not looking at reinfection with the herpes zoster virus, which is the real issue with shingles, so its conclusion that no link can be found should be doubted.
Addendum - the first fourteen days
Of course the big question about the November 2022 study (which Jessica Rose mentions obliquely) is the first fourteen days after vaccination: did the study authors consider the subjects to be unvaccinated in the first fourteen days, as is the practice in many studies today? Considering the herpes zoster side effect anecdotally seems to occur early on, in the first few days after vaccination, this would invalidate their conclusions even further.