TIME reports on the connection between vaccines and lupus flares according to experts including HSS rheumatologists Medha Barbhaiya, MD, MPH, and Lisa A. Mandl, MD, MPH. 

In 1978, a team of Harvard Medical School researchers examined whether people with lupus responded to the influenza vaccine differently from the way a group of “normal” control subjects did. They looked at vaccine side effects, as well as post-vaccination lupus symptoms and autoantibody activity. 

“Symptoms after vaccination were somewhat more frequent in the lupus patients than in the normal subjects,” they reported. “However, all symptoms were minor and no major flare of illness occurred. No significant induction or increase of pre-existing autoantibodies among the patients was detected after vaccination.”

“This is a big concern we hear from patients—whether their rheumatic disease will flare after a vaccine,” said Dr. Barbhaiya. “What the data suggests is that most people do well, and severe flares are very uncommon.”

Intuitively, it makes sense that a vaccine—something that is designed to stimulate an immune response—may occasionally trigger a reaction in people who experience overactive or disordered immune activity, such as those with SLE. 

 People with lupus are at risk for these adverse events just like anyone else. Are they at greater risk? That doesn’t seem to be the case. “There is no substantial evidence that patients with lupus have adverse events beyond what’s reported in the general population,” Dr. Barbhaiya explained. 

In 2021, Dr. Barbhaiya and colleagues, including Dr. Lisa Mandl, conducted a study of COVID-19 vaccination responses among people with SLE. “The COVID pandemic offered this unique opportunity where we could assess vaccine outcomes in real time on a very large scale,” Dr. Mandl said. 

Their group’s study of 183 patients found that roughly 8% of SLE patients experienced a flare within two weeks of vaccination with one of the three available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. “These results were very reassuring,” Dr. Mandl said. “Of the few who did report a flare, most were mild or moderate.” In fact, only one patient in the study experienced a severe flare following vaccination. Furthermore, most of the flares resolved themselves within seven days. 

Read the full article at time.com.