What is post-COVID – and what is post-vaccine?

Post-COVID (long COVID/post-COVID)

Post-COVID describes symptoms that persist for at least three months after a COVID-19 infection and cannot be explained by any other diagnosis. People of all ages are affected—even those who initially had mild symptoms.

Typical symptoms:

• Severe exhaustion and stress intolerance
• Brain fog: difficulty concentrating and finding words
• Shortness of breath, tightness in the chest
• Heart palpitations, dizziness, circulatory problems; postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS)
• Muscle and nerve pain
• Sleep problems, mood swings
• Smell and taste disorders

The symptoms can come in waves and severely restrict everyday life.

Post Vac

Post-vaccination syndrome refers to a similar set of symptoms that occur after vaccination, usually after COVID-19 vaccinations. Here, too, those affected report:

• Severe exhaustion
• Neuropathies and abnormal sensations
• Palpitations, postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS)
• Muscle pain, joint pain
• Concentration disorders
• Autoimmune reactions or worsening of existing conditions

Unlike post-COVID, there are no official guidelines yet. Many specialist outpatient clinics now treat post-vaccination syndrome using similar principles to those used for post-COVID.

Adjuvants – what they do and where questions remain

Adjuvants are substances that enhance the immune response to a vaccine. They enable inactivated or partial vaccines to be effective in the first place.

Main types:

• Aluminum salts (used in children's vaccines for decades)
• Oil-in-water emulsions such as MF59 or AS03 (e.g., in flu vaccines)
• Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) in mRNA vaccines – formally transport vehicles, practically with their own immune activation

Official data: large cohort studies currently see no significantly increased long-term risks from aluminum or MF59.

Critical perspective: For years, naturopaths and individual research groups have been debating whether certain people are more sensitive to adjuvants, for example, with chronic fatigue, neurological symptoms, or autoimmune processes. The data available on this topic is sparse; long-term, independent research is lacking and is not being funded.

For those affected, it is less important who is right. The complaints are real and deserve serious medical attention.

Vaccine side effects: What do the data from the Paul Ehrlich Institute show (excluding COVID-19)?

The Paul Ehrlich Institute records suspected cases of vaccine side effects. Important: These are reports, not confirmed causalities. The numbers increase the more frequently a vaccine is used and the more closely it is monitored.

According to the German Medical Journal (PEI evaluation):

Children:

• Bexsero (meningococcal B): 306 reports
• Gardasil 9 (HPV): 281 reports
• Priorix (MMR): 254 reports

Adults:

• Shingrix (herpes zoster): approx. 52% of all suspected cases reported

Why are there so many reports about Shingrix?

The vaccine is highly adjuvanted and known for its pronounced reactogenicity—i.e., more frequent severe vaccine reactions.

These figures do not mean that these vaccines are the most dangerous. Rather, it is simply that this is where something is most frequently observed and reported.

How reliable are vaccine studies? – A nuanced perspective

COVID vaccines: From conditional to regular approval

The first COVID vaccines received conditional approval because data was lacking during the pandemic. BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna now have regular, indefinite EU approvals.

Criticisms of the studies

There is documented evidence of quality deficiencies at individual study centers, e.g., at the subcontractor Ventavia (Pfizer study): sloppy documentation, protocol violations, unclear blinding.

This does not mean that all studies are falsified.

It means that trust in the database requires radical transparency and independent verification.

Pharmaceutical influence on vaccine research

Meta-studies show:

• Industry-funded reviews are methodologically weaker more often
• They disproportionately often achieve positive results.
• Negative results are published less frequently

So it is less about "major fraud" and more about structural distortions that influence the overall picture. In addition, genuine double-blind studies have been deemed unethical by the ethics committee. In the COVID studies, too, the control group was treated later. This means that a genuine comparison of side effects occurring later is no longer possible.

Naturopathic observation: Unvaccinated people often appear healthier

Many naturopathic practices report:

• Unvaccinated children have fewer infections.
• fewer diagnoses and
• fewer chronic complaints.

At the same time, large registry studiesdo not paintsuch a clear picture. They find neither a dramatic disadvantage of vaccinations nor a clear superiority of unvaccinated groups in clinical trials.