A 62-year-old German man “deliberately and for private reasons” received 217 COVID vaccinations in the span of 29 months.
Prosecutors in the country initially suspected he had been getting the jabs as part of a scheme to sell immunization cards, though criminal charges were never filed. Once doctors and researchers got wind of it, however, they asked if the man would be willing to take part in a study about what happens to an immune system that’s been hypervaccinated.
“We learned about his case via newspaper articles,” explains Dr. Kilian Schober of the Institute of Microbiology – Clinical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene. “We then contacted him and invited him to undergo various tests in Erlangen. He was very interested in doing so.”
The man, who is not identified due to Germany’s privacy rules, did not experience any vaccine-related side effects, and his “clinical chemistry parameters showed no abnormalities attributable to hypervaccination,” according to a write-up of the study in The Lancet. He also never had a COVID infection, though it's not clear if that's due to his repeated vaccinations, the researchers said. Of the 217 jabs, the team was able to confirm 134 vaccines, with the rest being self-reported.
The results showed that the individual has large numbers of T-effector cells against SARS-CoV-2. These act as the body’s own soldiers that fight against the virus. The test person even had more of these compared to the control group of people who have received three vaccinations. The researchers did not perceive any fatigue in these effector cells, they were similarly effective as those in the control group who had received the normal number of vaccinations.
Memory T cells are another aspect the researchers explored. These are cells at a preliminary stage, before effector cells. Similar to stem cells, these cells can replenish numbers of suitable effector cells. “The number of memory cells was just as high in our test case as in the control group,” explains Katharina Kocher, one of the leading authors of the study. “Over all, we did not find any indication for a weaker immune response, rather the contrary.” In addition, even the 217th vaccination that the man received during the study still had an effect: the number of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 increased significantly as a result.
Immune system remains active against other pathogens
Further tests indicated that there was no change to the immune system’s effectiveness against other pathogens. It therefore appears to be the case that the hypervaccination has not damaged the immune system as such. “Our test case was vaccinated with a total of eight different vaccines, including different available mRNA vaccines,” stated Dr. Kilian Schober. “The observation that no noticeable side effects were triggered in spite of this extraordinary hypervaccination indicates that the drugs have a good degree of tolerability.” (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)
The researchers were clear that this was just one case study and should not lead to any conclusions for the general public. They therefore "do not endorse hypervaccination as a strategy to enhance adaptive immunity."
