ISSN: 2471-9315
John SM Leung
This is a front-line clinical study on the side-effects of two COVID-19 vaccines encountered in a hospital-based combined outpatient and inpatient clinical practice. The subjects include 15 patients almost evenly distributed between the sexes, and incurring 24 incidents of side effects, of which 15 were considered deleterious, 4 were (surprisingly) beneficial and five were considered having some possible beneficial effects. The deleterious side effects of COVID-19 vaccines include pain (ranging from pain in injection site to myalgia, arthralgia and neuralgia), fever, diarrhoea (including flare up of occult chronic intestinal infection), fatigue, other neuropathic disabilities, cardiac arrhythmia, precordial discomfort and intractable cough. Although rare, the occurrence of vaccine associated deleterious effects has been well-known and often over-reported. In contrast, the beneficial side effects were rarely, if ever, mentioned partly because they were so rare as to go unnoticed by the patients or their physicians, or partly because their reports were rejected in disbelief by the editors of medical journals. These include relief of pain, palsy and cough, and the uncovering of an occult chronic intestinal infection leading to its definitive treatment and recovery. Of greater importance is the possibly favourable influence of COVID-19 vaccine in cancer. All cancer patients in this study did unusually well after vaccination, in spite of being sometimes at a rather advanced or high risk status of cancer development. The possibilities of beneficial effects from vaccines are further discussed in the respective section. This study was made against a back ground of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, with a population of over seven million, of which over 90% had received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine. This is a candid report of the off-target effects of vaccination, significant enough to cause the patient to report to a hospital clinic, including the good, the bad and the possibly beneficial, presented with comments on their characteristics, their possible mitigation and even their potential therapeutic value.