“A team of multiple sclerosis researchers from Harvard Medical School and MS centers in Massachusetts and New York report an increase in MS symptoms in COVID-vaccinated individuals with MS.

Specifically, the team saw increased demyelination of the central nervous system (CNS) “consistent with active CNS demyelination of the optic nerve, brain and/or spinal cord. Symptoms included visual loss, dysmetria, gait instability, paresthesias, sphincter disturbance and limb weakness,” the researchers said in a case published in the Journal of Neurology.

Even though no one with MS was included in the original mRNA vaccine clinical trials, the Harvard team gave seven individuals the vaccine based on an observational study of 555 MS patients who took the shots in late December and early January 2021, who showed relatively few adverse reactions from it.

However, the Harvard team’s seven patients developed new neurological symptoms within a few weeks of either the first or second doses. The patients had “low” neurological disabilities before they were given the shots; three of them had no history at all of demyelinating disease.

While the Harvard team said they couldn’t definitively pin the vaccinations as the cause of the seven patients’ new symptoms since, theoretically, those symptoms could develop at any time in an MS patient, they did say “Our observations suggest that, in some individuals, COVID-19 vaccination may carry a short-term risk of CNS demyelination. This is in contrast with a recent study performed in Israel on 555 individuals with MS who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.”