Guillain-Barré Syndrome Associated With 17 Vaccines, Including COVID and Flu Shots

A new long-term study assessing the association of vaccines with reported cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) found that “most vaccines” were associated with GBS.

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

A new long-term study assessing the association of vaccines with reported cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) found that “most vaccines” were associated with GBS, and that reports of vaccine-associated GBS have been “increasing steadily over time.”

The study, published Oct. 19 in the journal Scientific Reports, part of the Springer Nature family of journals, examined global cases of GBS between 1967 and 2023. The authors found that of the 19 vaccines examined, 17 vaccines — including COVID-19 and influenza vaccines — were potentially associated with GBS.

The findings also showed that reports of vaccine-related GBS surged following the introduction of the swine flu vaccine in 2009 and the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020.

These results prompted the study’s authors to suggest that healthcare professionals “should consider the possibility that vaccines may be a contributing factor in cases of GBS, particularly in older patients, when there is a history of vaccination within the preceding two weeks in a clinical setting.”

GBS is a rare condition that attacks the peripheral nervous system. It can cause sudden numbness and muscle weakness in much of the body. Roughly 1-2 GBS cases per 100,000 people are reported annually.

GBS can be deadly. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “less than 2% of people die from GBS in the acute phase” of the disease, when symptoms are at their peak. But according to the study, the mortality rate for GBS can reach 17% in countries with “limited resources,” according to research published in The Lancet in 2021.

According to the study’s dataset, 117 deaths were reported among the 15,377 cases of vaccine-associated GBS, with 87 deaths (74.6%) occurring in people 65 and over, and two deaths (1.69%) occurring in children 11 or younger.

The researchers cited the “scarcity of data” connecting GBS to vaccination as one of the rationales for performing the study, alongside efforts to “address vaccine hesitancy.”

Based on data from a World Health Organization (WHO) database, the study found a notable surge in vaccine-associated GBS since the COVID vaccines were rolled out in 2020.

The study’s authors — a team of 14 researchers affiliated with institutions in South Korea, the U.S., Australia, France, Iran and the United Kingdom — identified 15,377 cases of vaccine-associated GBS between 1978 and 2023, among the 22,616 reports of all drug-related reports of GBS during that period.

However, the researchers said studies have “consistently shown a higher risk of GBS” from COVID-19 and flu infections compared to vaccination. They said research indicates a four- to seven-times increase in GBS following influenza infection.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), praised the study’s authors for their “scope and ambition” in examining GBS incidence by vaccine and over time. However, he questioned key aspects of the researchers’ methodology.

“I am surprised that Nature published this article,” Jablonowski said. “The errors in writing, in data presentation and the extremely biased nature of the underlying data, do not make this a great paper, though the ambitious scope of the paper is admirable,” Jablonowski said.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, questioned the researchers’ conclusion that infection poses a greater risk of GBS compared to vaccination.

“The references in this paper regarding the incidence of GBS following influenza being four to seven times higher than that of vaccines all lead to one review paper by Greg Poland written in 2012.”

Hooker added:

“I have been unsuccessful at getting a copy of the review paper or even an abstract for that paper. But I’m doubtful that a review paper would have original data to support this claim. I’m also very doubtful that Dr. Poland — with myriad conflicts of interest — would be the best person to report on such a difference.”

The study’s authors did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

GBS reports surged after COVID, swine flu vaccines were introduced

The study used data from VigiBase, the WHO’s global database of adverse event reports. The data were used to “assess the association” between GBS and the 19 vaccines examined.

Addressing the post-2020 surge in GBS cases following widespread COVID-19 vaccination, the researchers said COVID-19 vaccines “exhibited the lowest association compared to other vaccines.”

Three types of COVID-19 vaccines — mRNA, adenovirus-vectored type 5 (Ad5) and inactivated whole-virus — “showed significant associations with GBS,” as did the varicella-zoster vaccine, according to the study. Influenza vaccines “showed the highest association.”

The researchers concluded that Ad5-vectored COVID-19 vaccines are “associated with a higher incidence of GBS,” especially when compared to the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

None of the COVID-19 vaccines used in the U.S. were Ad5-vectored. However, the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine, which used a different type of adenovirus vector (Ad26), was linked to an increased incidence of GBS.

The researchers also addressed a similar spike in GBS cases beginning around 2010. They suggested increased surveillance and “enhanced awareness and reporting efforts” following the 2009 influenza pandemic may have contributed to the spike.

Incidence of vaccine-related GBS likely higher than reported

The study’s findings did not indicate sex-specific risks of GBS, but found an increased association observed with advancing age, which the researchers said aligns with “natural epidemiological patterns, a tendency observed across various individual vaccines such as influenza, varicella zoster, COVID-19 mRNA, and ad5-vectored COVID-19 vaccines.”

The average time of GBS onset was 5.5 days — with a standard deviation of 41.72 days. According to Jablonowski, the “really high standard deviation” means there are “many data points far away from the average number.”

“When such extreme values occur frequently enough to result in such a large standard deviation, the interesting information is not going to be captured by these summary statistics,” Jablonowski said. “It does beg the question, why is there such a great variability in the time to onset? You would expect high variability when you have few data points, and lower variability when you have more data points.”

Hooker said the study’s “assertion regarding ‘better surveillance’ of GBS starting in 2010 doesn’t really make much sense. Increases in flu shot uptake would primarily cause this, he said, especially given the strong association between flu shots and GBS.

“Also, that was about the same time as the distribution of H1N1 vaccines globally,” Hooker said.

Internist Dr. Meryl Nass told The Defender the “hastily concocted … 2009-10 ‘swine flu’ vaccine had high uptake” and that it was released despite “minimal testing” and that European regulators “covered up the massively increased side effects” from this vaccine.

Jablonowski said, “It is impossible to tell from the data in this publication if the increase in GBS reporting is a change in reporting behavior or a change in disease presentation.”

He said vaccine safety signal surveillance systems also are unlikely to capture the full extent of the incidence of adverse events.

“VigiBase is the end product of passive surveillance and is going to embody the reporting biases of such a system,” Jablonowski said.

Albert Benavides, founder of VAERSAware.com, which tracks adverse event reports filed with VAERS, the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, told The Defender that passive surveillance systems like VigiBase and VAERS — which rely on voluntary reporting — likely undercount GBS cases.

“GBS is one of those clinical diagnoses I believe get underrepresented simply because reports are filed before a clinical diagnosis is made,” Benavides said. “GBS is similar, where there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of victims that have weakness, numbness and some form of paralysis.”

He added, “Clinical diagnosis of GBS often takes six weeks or longer, which is another reason vaccine reports are less likely to be reported in general.”

Jablonowski said that over the past three decades, 47% of the African population received a yellow fever vaccination, yet only 32 GBS reports — or 0.21% of the VigiBase reports — are registered for the entire continent for the 56 years of surveillance.

“There is clear reporting bias both temporally and geographically,” Jablonowski said.

Jablonowski also questioned the GBS researchers’ methodological approach.

“The calculation that COVID vaccines have a small association with GBS uses a reported odds ratio (ROR). That means the association is relative to the other reports filed for the COVID vaccines,” Jablonowski said.

“If a vaccine’s adverse events were mostly GBS, then the association would be really high,” he added. “If a vaccine’s adverse events included the same rate of GBS but along with a dozen other conditions, the association would be low, even though the incidence rate between the two vaccines is the same.”

As a result, “an mRNA COVID vaccine with a myriad of well-known adverse outcomes — such as myocarditis, pericarditis, dyspnoea, acute respiratory failure, acute kidney injury and hypoxia — is going to have a low ROR for GBS,” even if the actual incidence rate of GBS is high.

According to the researchers, more research is needed “to elucidate the underlying mechanisms linking vaccines and GBS.”