Does Pfizer admit in documents that its COVID-19 vaccine may cause vaccine-associated enhanced disease?
Pfizer's documents list "vaccine-associated enhanced disease," or VAED, under "Important Potential Risk," but also note, "No post-authorized [adverse event] reports have been identified as cases of VAED. Therefore, there is no observed data at this time."
VAED occurs when a vaccinated person develops a more severe illness than they would have if they had not been vaccinated. VAED is also known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).
Nebraska Medicine infectious diseases expert and physician Nada Fadul tells Lead Stories there's no evidence to support the claim of vaccine-associated enhanced disease:
"Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) is something researchers watch for very carefully and is extremely rare." He added:
"If COVID-19 vaccines caused ADE, people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 would have more severe disease. This is not happening. On the contrary, people who are vaccinated typically have very mild disease or none at all."