'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
A new study that did a systematic review of COVID-19 vaccine trials suggests that the negative version of the placebo effect may be behind mild COVID-19 vaccine side-effects like headache and fatigue, and not the vaccines themselves.
The study, published in the JAMA Open Network on Tuesday, examined 12 COVID-19 vaccine trials in the Medline (PubMed) and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) databases that were published up until July 14, 2021.
The researchers behind the study say that according to a global survey from January 2021, 47 per cent of respondents were worried about adverse effects (AEs) from a COVID-19 vaccine, which may feed into vaccine hesitancy.
However, the study found that the “nocebo” effect accounted for approximately 76 per cent of all common AEs after the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and close to 52 per cent after the second dose.
The nocebo effect refers to when a person experiences unpleasant side-effects after taking a placebo, and is thought to stem from negative expectations associated with taking the treatment.
The researchers suggest that a large portion of common side-effects to COVID-19 vaccines like headaches, fatigue and pain in the arm are not from the vaccine, but from factors like anxiety and wrongly attributing various ailments with getting inoculated.
The findings suggest that approximately two-thirds of common side-effects that are reported in COVID-19 vaccine trials were prompted by the nocebo effect, especially headache and fatigue, which are often listed as common reactions after inoculation.
The study examined the AEs reported in the 12 trials, which included data on the participants who received a placebo (salt solution) instead of the vaccine. The study did not examine severe side-effects like myocarditis or blood clots.
Thirty-five per cent of the participants in the placebo cohorts reported side-effects like headaches and short-term fatigue, and 16 per cent reported arm pain, swelling or redness at the injection site.
Participants who received the real vaccine in the trials experienced more side-effects, with approximately 46 per cent reporting headache and fatigue and 66 per cent reporting at least one localized side effect such as arm pain, swelling or redness at the injection site.
The findings suggest that after the first vaccine dose, nocebo responses accounted for 76 per cent of “systemic” side-effects like headache and fatigue, and 24 per cent of localized AEs.
However, after the second dose, 32 per cent of the placebo cohorts reported systemic side-effects and 12 per cent reported localized AEs, compared with 61 per cent of the vaccine recipients reporting systemic side-effects and 73 per cent reporting localized AEs.
The study states that compared with the first-dose findings, the larger difference in adverse effects between the placebo groups and vaccine groups in the trials was found after the second dose.
However, ratios between adverse effect proportions in the placebo and vaccine cohorts of the trials indicated that nocebo responses accounted for 52 per cent of systemic side-effects and 16 per cent of localized AEs after the second dose.
The researchers posit that listing the common side-effects on COVID-19 vaccination leaflets may increase nocebo effects related to anxiety and expectations from the recipients, and say that an increase in transparent communication about nocebo responses may be helpful to the public.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
The World Health Organization is likely to issue a wider warning about contaminated Johnson and Johnson-made children's cough syrup found in Nigeria last week, it said in an email.
Canada called for 'all parties' to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.