Increased risk of functional neurological disorders following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination 2023 Pilotto et al

Abstract
Background and purpose
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the possible correlation between SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and the onset of neurological syndromes. The aim was to challenge the association between SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and the onset of acute functional neurological disorders (FNDs) compared to other neurological syndromes in hospitalized patients.

Methods
In this prospective cohort study, all adult inpatients consecutively admitted to a tertiary neurological centre were included. The prevalence and characteristics of neurological syndromes were compared between unvaccinated and vaccinated cases stratified according to the onset from vaccination. The study involved 843 subjects, namely 411 unvaccinated (UVC) and 432 vaccinated cases; these groups were comparable for demographics and clinical diagnosis distribution.

Results
Compared to UVC, subjects hospitalized within the first 30 days from vaccine exhibited higher prevalence of FNDs (12.3% vs. 3.6%; odds ratio 4.2, 95% confidence interval 1.6–11.1) and headache (10.8% vs. 5%; odds ratio 4.1, 95% confidence interval 1.9–8.8) but no other neurological syndromes. The FND cases following vaccinations showed similar premorbid conditions and severity but a higher percentage of sensory symptoms and pain compared to UVC FND cases.

Conclusions
SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is associated with a significant short-term increased risk of FND and headache requiring hospitalization in an acute neurological setting.

Open access, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ene.16191

 

"FND was diagnosed in the presence of (i) one or more patterns of deficits consistent predominantly with dysfunction of the nervous system and (ii) variability in performance within and between tasks [6], whereas medical unexplained symptoms (MUS) were diagnosed according to current criteria [9]."

REf 9 is to this study, Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms: Why Counseling Psychologists Should Care About Them, 2020, McAndrew et al, which defines MUS as

"MUS—also called functional somatic syndromes, physical symptom disorders, persistent physical symptoms or chronic multisymptom illness (Greco, 2012; Kroenke, 2006)—is an umbrella term that refers to conditions characterized by multiple, co-occurring, chronic physical symptoms. MUS may fit into a known diagnostic entity such as chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, or may include chronic debilitating symptoms that do not fit into a known label."

 

Where is the evidence that people who have just been vaccinated have FND? Or is it just too easy for researchers to decide that symptoms they don't want to treat must be FND?

 

Dismissing the consequences of vaccine reactions is going to be one of the biggest own goals in history. The COVID vaccines are especially likely to cause bad reactions, and headaches are a pretty common side effect. It's bad enough to have so thoroughly depressed uptake by constantly minimizing the reason to take them, but to disrespect people who have a reaction to it is going to massively increase mistrust in vaccines in general, probably even more than the MMR paper debacle. It's like they don't believe in side effects, that they are purely a psychological reaction, or whatever. Only signs. Symptoms? Bah, never real.

All they have to do is be neutral scientists, record what is happening without bias and refrain from passing judgment. But passing moralistic judgment attacking people's character has become central to health care with the biopsychosocial ideology. They don't seem to appreciate the limits of their influence, that in about 99% of cases, they can't actually order people to do anything, that if people simply don't trust them, there goes all the influence they have when they give out legitimate facts. Why should people trust experts they know are bullshitting them to their face on occasion?

There is a great episode in the show The Orville, a great Star Trek knockoff with a more humorous bent, about a civilization that believes in astrology so strongly that their system of laws is built around it. This fanatical psychosomatic BS here is far dumber, and it's not even close. It has far more serious and far-reaching consequences.

 

@Andy

Perhaps my problem is that I do not find the "evidence" for FND even remotely convincing, mainly because of my own diagnosis of FND from the 1990s. Approx seven years after the diagnosis the problem I had was fixed with surgery. I didn't have "dysfunction of the nervous system" - I had a physical problem that could be repaired but nobody wanted to go looking for it or believed it existed or was relevant. And the surgeon who found the problem was looking for something else at the time. He wouldn't have operated on me if I'd asked him to look into the problem directly, so he went off on a wild goose chase of his own, and (luckily for me) caught the goose.

 

Neither do I, but you asked what the evidence in this case was, and I highlighted what the authors here claim is the evidence.