Eye Injuries from the COVID Vaccines
Eye Injuries from the COVID Vaccines
More evidence of COVID vaccine injuries are in the cardiovascular system than in any other system. And the cardiovascular system is (safely) visible only at the retina. So let's look at the eyes.
Injury to the eyes following vaccination can be a sign of more widespread disease, including possibility of sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that is often found on biopsy. It manifests as granulomas in multiple organ systems. It is known to occur following a number of drugs and vaccinations. [1] [2]
When sarcoidosis affects the eye, it usually inflames the uveal tissues that form the middle layer of the eyewall, an emergency ophthalmic condition known as uveitis. These tissues include the iris, the choroid and the ciliary body, shown below in blue/purple, in this eye anatomy illustration. [3]
An estimated 25 to 50 % of sarcoidosis patients suffer from uveitis. [4]
Uveitis manifests with blurred vision, floaters and other symptoms including pain and redness of the scleral tissue (“bloodshot eyes”) and / or photophobia.
After receiving one of the COVID vaccines, the onset to uveitis averaged 8.0 days post vaccination, according to a literature review by Haseeb et al of 58 studies on this topic. [5] The mode was two days post-vaccination. These findings were similar to the Rabinovitch et al findings of average 7.5 days in their review of literature regarding uveitis onset post-Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. [6]
Haseeb et al reviewed all ocular complications following COVID vaccination found in the medical literature until February 2022. Their Table 1 summarizes this data. My graph below further summarizes from that table days of onset of signs and symptoms of eye injury following vaccination, as drawn from the Haseeb et al Table 1 data as follows.
My stacked line graph shows that of the 88 patients reporting over the first 21 days following vaccination, covered in 58 articles reviewed by Haseeb et al, the majority were found to have signs or symptoms of ocular injury on or near day 2 following vaccination. The preponderance of findings within the first few days shows a temporal association between vaccination and eye injury that either favors a causality hypothesis or a willingness to ascribe ocular injury to a recently received vaccine.
These findings of two days peak onset differ by two days from the mortality findings post-vaccination from the US government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data. Those aggregate data of days from vaccine dose to death is summarized in the following graph. [7]
Possible reasons for this disparity in number of days could include the immediacy of awareness of death contrasted with delay in confirmation of visual changes by eye consult and imaging, as well as some patients’ possible delay of recognition or initial denial of visual changes. Another possibility for such two-day delay, as discussed in the last section of this paper, regarding mechanisms, is that the impact of micro-clotting or immune-complex deposition is not necessarily immediate.
Other eye injuries following COVID vaccination
Ng et al reported in their literature review other eye injuries following COVID vaccination, including acute macular retinopathy, central serous retinopathy, thrombosis, multiple evanescent white dot syndrome, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease reactivation and new-onset Graves’ Disease. [8]
On the day after a first Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine, a 61-year old male noticed discomfort and blurred vision in his right eye. [9] An ophthalmologist consult found iritis and increased pressure in that eye. His vitreous humor in that eye was so turbid that the right retina can barely be seen in fundoscopic exam (the cloudy-appearing image on the reader’s left below):
A case of bilateral vision loss occurred in a 79-year old female who had received the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine two days earlier. [10] The injury to each eye was somewhat different, and each resulted in some vision loss. Both show pallor, or inadequate vascular perfusion, in the area of the optic nerve.
A case of a healthy 33-year old female with occurrence of a new blind spot (nasal field defect) and flashing lights (photopsia) ten days after her second Moderna mRNA injection. Ocular computed tomography (OCT) imaging showed damage to the ellipsoid zone in each eye. [11]
A case of central serous retinopathy (CSR) developed in one eye of an otherwise healthy male 33-year old, who had received a first dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine less than 3 days earlier. [12] This injury had the effect of swelling and lifting his right eye’s macula away from the basement membrane, which pocket filled with serous fluid. The affected right eye is shown in the images on the reader’s left below, and can be better appreciated in the cross section of the fundus, as shown in the authors’ Figure 1B [13] below:
This triangular pocket in B above holding serous fluid should not be there. It interferes with vision.
Corneal graft rejection has been reported after the Pfizer vaccines, including in a patient 7 days after a first Pfizer-BioNTech dose. [14] Some of the accompanying signs were diffuse corneal edema and conjunctival hyperemia.
Why is this happening? Possible mechanisms
A problem with vaccination since its beginning is the assumption that a counter-natural practice could produce more desirable than undesirable results in humanity’s timeless quest to repel pathogenic organisms. In the case of vaccination, there is breach (by way of antigen-laden needle) of a person’s first and most frequently engaged (and arguably most decisive) immune barriers, namely the skin and mucous membranes. Vaccination thus effectively denies and prevents the role of those organs in immune function and repulsion of microbes, as this practice re-assigns first encounter immune effect from skin and mucous membranes to the cells of the blood and lymph. As a result, the vaccinee risks the following complications to present and future immune function, as summarized by Maleki, et al. [15]
Uveitis and choroiditis are two auto-immune phenomena that have occurred many times following earlier vaccines. This 2016 review of 289 post-vaccine uveitis cases over a 26-year period describes eye-related manifestations of such immune system upheaval. The median number of days between vaccination and onset of uveitis was 16 days, and 23 different vaccines and vaccine combinations were identified. [16]
With regard to the mRNA COVID vaccines, spike proteins are generated by the mRNA mechanism for an undetermined amount of time. SARS-CoV-2 RNA has been found in tears, aqueous humor and other ocular tissues. [17] [18] Either this RNA and / or spike proteins may provoke immune complex deposition, which may be an inflammatory stimulus in the middle layer of the eyewall. [19]
Seneff et al had identified a significant reduction in Type I interferon observed in the mRNA vaccinated, as having a potential causative role in derangement of immune function in COVID-vaccinated individuals. [20] Rabinovitch et al also identify changes in Type I interferon as a mechanism in post-vaccine uveitis. [21]
There are known systemic risks that are highly correlated with the COVID vaccines. Regardless of mRNA or viral-vector-type, notable injuries have mainly involved systemic hemostasis-related pathologies, such as thrombogenesis / clot formation, particularly microscopic clotting that has contributed to myocarditis [22] and vaccine-induced thrombocytic thrombocytopenia (VITT). [23] Haseeb et al attribute some post-vaccine orbital injuries to the eye, such as superior ophthalmic vein thrombosis and Tolosa-Hunt syndrome to a possible hypercoagulable state. [24]
Spike proteins are generated without known endpoint by the mRNA COVID vaccines. These proteins access the cells lining our blood vessels, the vascular endothelium, by means of the ACE-2 receptor, and jut into the lumen, creating eddies and stagnation, which impede the smooth laminar flow of liquid blood through normal blood vessels. Such turbulence in turn gives rise to risks for macro and micro-clotting. [22] The retina is ideally suited for study of such phenomena, due to the safety of the fundoscopic eye exam, and the clarity of the normal vitreous humor enabling such examination.
Many of the injuries described and summarized above were treated to relief of symptoms by the use of corticosteroids, but some individuals’ conditions remained refractory to treatment.
Those who consider either the new experimental COVID vaccines or the older vaccines should be fully informed, prior to vaccination, of the possibility of eye injury as well as the history of specific injuries associated with each vaccine that they consider taking. A fundoscopic exam of the retinas prior to vaccination may be considered as “before pictures” that may be compared to “after pictures” following medical interventions such as vaccination.
[1] A Chopra, A Nautiyal, et al. Drug-induced sarcoidosis-like reaction. Sep 2018. Chest. 154 (3). 664-677. https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(18)30640-8/fulltext
[2] M Heydari-Kamjani, I vante, et al. Uveitis sarcoidosis presumably initiated after administration of Shingrix vaccine. Jun 2019. Cureus 11 (6). e4920. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6692093/
[3] H Kolb. Gross anatomy of the eye. Webvision. https://webvision.med.utah.edu/book/part-i-foundations/gross-anatomy-of-the-ey/
[4] A Heiligenhaus, A Wefelmeyer, et al. The eye as a common site for the early clinical manifestation of sarcoidosis. 2011 Ophthalmic Res. 46 (1). 9-12. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21099232/
[5] A Haseeb, O Solyman, et al. Ocular complications following vaccination for COVID-19: A one-year retrospective. Feb 2022 Vaccines. 10 (2). 342. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8875181/
[6] T Rabinovitch, Y Ben-Arie-Weintrob, et al. Uveitis after the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infection: A possible association. Dec 1 2021. Retina. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34369440/
[7] OpenVAERS. VAERS COVID / Flu vaccine reported deaths by days to onset all ages. https://www.openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
[8] X Ng, B Betzler, et al.. Ocular adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination. Sep 24 2021. Ocular Immunol Inflamm. 29. 1216-1224.
[9] T Numakura, K Murakami, et al. A novel development of sarcoidosis following COVID-19 vaccinatnion and a literature review Oct 15 2022. Intern Med. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9646347/
[10] A Maleki, S Look-Why, et al. COVID-19 recombinant mRNA vaccines and serious inflammatory side effects: Real or coincidence? Jul-Sep 2021. J Ophthalmic Vis Res 16 (3). 490-501. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8358769/
[11] Ibid Maleki.
[12] N Fowler, N Mendez, et al. Acute-onsent central serous retinopathy after immunization with COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Sep 2021. Am J Ophthalmol Case Rep. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8195685/
[13] Ibid Fowler. Figure 1B.
[14] A Crnej, Z Khoueir, et al. Acute corneal endothelial graft rejection following COVID-19 vaccination. Oct 2021. J Fr Ophthalmol. 44 (8). e445-e447. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8264522/
[15] A Maleki, S Look-Why, et al. COVID-19 recombinant mRNA vaccines and serious inflammatory side effects: Real or coincidence? Jul-Sep 2021. J Ophthalmic Vis Res 16 (3). 490-501. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8358769/
[16] M Benage. Vaccine-associated uveitis. Jan-Feb 2016. Mo Med. 113 (1). 48-52. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6139748/
[17] Y Zhou, C Duan, et al. ocular findings and proportion with conjunctival SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 patients. Jul 2020. Ophthalmology. 127 (7). 982-983. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7194804/
[18] I Seah, D Anderson, et al. Assessing viral shedding and infectivity of tears in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Jul 2020. Ophthalmology. 127 (7). 977-979. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151491/
[19] A Haseeb, O Solyman, et al. Ocular complications following vaccination for COVID-19: A one-year retrospective. Feb 2022 Vaccines. 10 (2). 342. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8875181/
[20] S Seneff, G Nigh, et al. Innate immune suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes and microRNAs. Jun 2022. Food Chem Toxicol. 164. 113008. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9012513/
[21] T Rabinovitch, Y Ben-Arie-Weintrob, et al. Uveitis after the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infection: A possible association. Dec 1 2021. Retina. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34369440/
[22] C Huber. Heart damage from the COVID vaccines: Is it avoidable? July 14 2021. PDMJ. https://pdmj.org/papers/myocarditis_paper
[23] E Favaloro, J Clifford, et al. Assessment of immunological anti-platelet factor 4 antibodies for vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) in a large Australian cohort: A multicenter study comprising 1284 patients. Dec 2022. J Thromb Haemost. 20 (12). 2896-2908. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9828670/
[24] A Haseeb, O Solyman, et al. Ocular complications following vaccination for COVID-19: A one-year retrospective. Feb 2022 Vaccines. 10 (2). 342. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8875181/
As with most medical issues unappreciated individual differences can make all the difference. In the case of the autoimmune eye disease uveitis a potential factor could be chronic vitamin D deficiency. That is, those that are susceptable to vax induced autoimmune disease are at higher risk if vitamin D deficient. I’ve seen uveitis resolve once vitD levels reach 50 ng/ml...about 5000-8000 IU D3 per day.
Thank you for covering this Dr Huber - I have
an acquaintance who has been having worsening eyesight since having Pfizer 2+booster.