{"id":1217,"date":"2021-03-12T08:21:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T13:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2021-03-12T08:21:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T13:21:30","slug":"what-is-causing-severe-allergic-reactions-for-some-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1217","title":{"rendered":"What is causing severe allergic reactions for some people?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0What are the ingredients in the vaccines that have been the cause of severe allergic reactions for some people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>The short answer is that we don&#8217;t know what causes severe allergic\u00a0reaction and scientists are actively researching it.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the longer answer:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Severe allergic reactions are rare and treatable.<\/strong>&nbsp;According to CDC&#8217;s vaccine adverse event reporting system, severe allergic reactions after Pfizer\/Moderna vaccination have occurred in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/vaccines\/safety\/adverse-events.html\">2 to 5 people per every million vaccinated<\/a> in the country (see <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2776557\"><em>JAMA<\/em>&nbsp;paper<\/a>).&nbsp; Note: An allergic reaction is considered severe when a person needs to be treated with epinephrine or EpiPen or if the person must go to the hospital. Experts refer to severe allergic reactions as anaphylaxis.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>If you have a known allergy to any ingredient in a COVID vaccine,&nbsp;CDC recommends against&nbsp;receiving that vaccine.<\/strong>&nbsp; CDC&#8217;s guidance is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/vaccines\/recommendations\/specific-groups\/allergies.html\">here<\/a> and for a full list of ingredients, see&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/media\/144414\/download\">Pfizer<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/media\/144638\/download\">Moderna<\/a>, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/media\/146305\/download\">Johnson &amp; Johnson<\/a>&nbsp;fact sheets.&nbsp; Of special note, if you are allergic to polyethylene glycol (PEG), you should not take Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.&nbsp; And if you are allergic to polysorbate, you should not take the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Scientists hypothesize that PEG may be the culprit.<\/strong>&nbsp; As described in a December 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2020\/12\/suspicions-grow-nanoparticles-pfizer-s-covid-19-vaccine-trigger-rare-allergic-reactions\">report from <em>Science<\/em><\/a>, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use&nbsp;lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to protect the mRNA; the LNPs are &#8220;\u201cPEGylated\u201d\u2014chemically attached to PEG molecules that cover the outside of the particles and increase their stability and life span.&#8221;&nbsp; PEG is used in medicines and everyday products like toothpaste and shampoo and were long thought to be biologically inert.&nbsp; However, a growing body of evidence indicates that PEG is actually active.&nbsp; A&nbsp;substantial proportion of people have antibodies to PEG. Those individuals with very high levels of PEG antibodies have experienced severe allergic reactions in other drug trials.&nbsp; PEG allergy is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7837118\/\">quite rare<\/a>.<\/li><li><strong>The NIH is studying the mechanism of severe allergic reaction. <\/strong>According to clinicaltrials.gov, the <a href=\"https:\/\/clinicaltrials.gov\/ct2\/show\/NCT04761822\">NIH is about to begin recruiting<\/a>&nbsp;2040&nbsp;individuals with a history of allergic reaction and 1360 individuals with no history of allergic reaction to participate in a randomized control trial to better understand systemic allergic reaction to both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.&nbsp; The study is expected to last 17 weeks, so hopefully we can see results in the summer.&nbsp; While these results will get us closer to understanding the mechanism of reaction, more study will be required&nbsp;even after this trial.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0What are the ingredients in the vaccines that have been the cause of severe allergic reactions for some people? Answer:\u00a0The short answer is that we don&#8217;t know what causes severe allergic\u00a0reaction and scientists are actively researching it.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the longer answer:\u00a0 Severe allergic reactions are rare and treatable.&nbsp;According to CDC&#8217;s vaccine adverse event reporting system, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50,64],"tags":[119,162,159,158],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guidelines","category-vaccines","tag-allergies","tag-johnsonjohnson","tag-moderna","tag-pfizer","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/pexels-photo-5863393.jpeg?fit=867%2C1300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/1219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}