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Two major international studies suggest COVID-19 vaccination may increase risks of respiratory illnesses, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and kidney injury, sparking renewed debate over vaccine safety and public health strategies.

People who got the COVID vaccine are significantly more likely to become afflicted with upper respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumonia, and tuberculosis, as well as acute kidney injury (AKI), according to reports in two international peer-reviewed medical journals.

“This retrospective cohort study provides robust evidence of dynamic changes in respiratory infection patterns during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea. While COVID-19 vaccination appears to confer partial protection against certain respiratory infections, such as ILI and pertussis, a paradoxical increase in the risk of URI and common cold with higher vaccine doses was noted,” reported The International Journal of Infectious Diseases (IJID).

The IJID is a publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

“These findings identify the complex interplay between vaccination, immunity, and pathogen ecology in the post-COVID era and highlight the need for tailored public health strategies to manage respiratory infections in a transitioning global health landscape,” the report said.

The IJID report was based on analysis of more than 39 million South Koreans, thus making it one of the biggest such analyses ever conducted regarding the effects of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. The study found distinct differences in an individual’s susceptibility to multiple illnesses that were seemingly linked to how many vaccines he or she received during the pandemic.

Non-COVID-19-indicated children who received four or more vaccines, for example, were 559% more likely to subsequently come down with the common cold, 91% more likely to get pneumonia, 83% more likely to have upper respiratory infections (URI), and 35% more likely to get tuberculosis.

Among non-positive older adults, those with four or more vaccines were 58% more likely to have common colds and 57% more likely to develop URIs. Older adults who were positive for COVID-19 were 35% more likely to come down with tuberculosis.

Sickness and Death

In the second study, published by the International Journal of Medical Science (IJMS), 2.9 million American adults were included, evenly divided between those with and without at least one COVID-19 vaccination. The study found that “after adjustment for confounding factors, the incidence of AKI … and dialysis was significantly higher in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated group. At the one-year follow-up, the number of deaths among vaccinated individuals was 7,693, while the number of deaths among unvaccinated individuals was 7,364.”

The case total for AKI was 15,809 among vaccinated individuals, compared to 11,081 unvaccinated individuals. For kidney failure requiring dialysis, the vaccinated case total was 1,513 versus 619 among unvaccinated persons.

Overall, the study authors concluded that “COVID-19 vaccination was associated with a higher risk of subsequent renal dysfunction, including AKI and dialysis treatment. The cumulative incidence of renal dysfunction was significantly higher in vaccinated than in unvaccinated patients.”

The IJMS is an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal published by IvySpring International Publisher, which is based in Sydney, Australia.

The results of the two studies are likely to intensify an often vociferous and intense debate within the medical, political, and scientific communities on the record compiled by the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines hastily developed in response to the deadly virus that killed more than one million Americans between 2020 and 2022.

The COVID-19 virus most likely originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, according to US intelligence experts, and spread throughout the world from there. Officials with the Chinese Communist Party insisted the virus originated in an open-air meat market near the Wuhan lab as a disease transmitted from bats to humans via food consumption.

President Donald Trump was in the middle of his first term in the White House when the COVID-19 outbreak began, and he oversaw the rapid vaccine development that ensued. He lost his re-election bid to former Vice President Joe Biden, and when Trump was returned to the Oval Office for a second term as chief executive in the 2024 election, the White House website added an extensively documented report entitled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of Covid-19”.

That report notes, among much else, that “the virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature” as well as additional facts that point to a lab leak at Wuhan as the most likely source for the outbreak.