Claire Savage wrote this article in AFP:
Articles shared on social media claim several dietary supplements can serve to “neutralize” effects of widely-used Covid-19 shots. This is false; doctors dismiss the claim, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the inoculations are safe and effective.
In what appears to be an online sales pitch aimed at vaccine skeptics, the articles claim that consuming iodine, zinc, quercetin, carbon 60 and pyrroloquinoline quinone will “mitigate damage” from mRNA vaccines.
Experts said these substances are unlikely either to alleviate side effects or to curtail the effectiveness of the shot.
Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told AFP in a phone interview: “I don't think any of those things would do anything.”
He added: “If you're worried about side effects from an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, take some Tylenol.”
Neither would these supplements render mRNA vaccines ineffective, Adalja said. “None of those things would probably have any effect on the immunogenicity of the vaccine.”
Dr Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, also addressed the claim.
“Boy, this is just full of errors,” he said by phone.
“Articles like this reject the science we have while not imposing on itself a better system of science… normally what would happen if you reject a piece of information, you are then required to muster the data to show why it should be rejected and develop new data showing why your method or your way is better.”
Poland called the article “a remarkable double failure” that “plays on vague fears and conspiracies.”
To propose medical treatment, one should be a licensed medical professional and provide an evidence base for the suggested action, Poland said. Without a clinical trial -- which mRNA vaccines have successfully undergone -- you cannot say definitively if any of the supplements would work in that way, but Poland said he sees no evidence as to why they would.
Dr Matthew Laurens, director of the fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told AFP: “None of these substances in any form would minimize side effects from a COVID-19 vaccine. Side effects from the vaccine are essentially related to the immune response that is stimulated in response to vaccination.”
He noted that taking these supplements is not expected to reduce the effectiveness of an mRNA shot, but that in theory it was possible “some of these chemicals could… diminish the immune response to vaccination.”
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