The video asserts that Covid vaccination carries a significant risk of major harm to people with ME or long Covid, but utterly fails to prove it. Its major errors are conflating side effects with serious harm (such as chronic or permanently increased disability), citing evidence of poor quality and relevance, and completely ignoring the benefits of vaccination. It employs many misleading and fallacious tactics, such as describing surveys as studies.
It's thoroughly established that vaccines vaccines have an incredibly good risk/benefit ratio. There's no reason to think the coronavirus vaccines were any different, as they were tested extremely rigorously. Before I got the Moderna vaccine, I looked it up: their phase 3 trial studied 28,000 people without finding significant safety concerns. (For further discussion: How many of these people had chronic conditions? Or even ME-like conditions?)
The video cites these 8 pieces of evidence. Only two are studies.
Surveys have obvious limitations. Respondents may not represent the general population, there are placebo/nocebo effects, and no one can prove cause and effect. Some people may have answered multiple surveys, making the actual number of respondents smaller than it seems. The author describes 4 as negative and 2 as positive. But what are they attempting to measure? Temporary exacerbation of symptoms or long-term harm? Or a muddy mix of both?
The Tsuchida study is not evidence the Covid vaccines are harmful. In an uncontrolled, unblinded (but prospective) study, they gave 42 people the Covid vaccine. Then they asked them if they felt better, worse, or the same 2-3 weeks after vaccination. Most felt the same. 7 felt better and 9 worse. A difference of two people. And this is long Covid, and illness famous for being variable. Color me unconvinced. And again, this study only looks at having side effects, not significant harms permanent side effects or increased disability. Maybe those 9 people returned to baseline eventually, or if the didn't, it was causally unrelated to vaccination.
Karina et al. is mostly irrelevant to the question of whether vaccines cause long-term harm. If it's relevant at all, it's reassuring. They gave vaccinations to people who experienced adverse reactions to vaccines in the past. The video claims that in this study, "The injury rate was 25%." This is severely misleading. The study speaks for itself: "Eleven patients (18%) experienced recurrence of their AEFI; none were serious (eg, resulting in hospitalization, permanent disability or death)."
He doesn't even mention the benefits of getting vaccinated: Protection against infection, severe disease, and post-infectious illness. Vaccination against Covid-19 may have saved
over 3 million lives...in the US alone. And vaccines protect
against long Covid beyond just preventing infection. It's reasonable to hypothesize that they would similarly prevent people who already have LC or ME from getting worse. Ultimately, people who watch this video without a critical eye will be misled, potentially resulting in hospitalizations, deaths, and new (perhaps worsening) long Covid.