Blitshteyn, Svetlana, Brinth, Louise, Hendrickson, Jeanne E et al. · Immunologic research · 2018 · DOI
This review looked at case reports from multiple countries describing people who developed serious symptoms after HPV vaccination, including extreme fatigue, pain, dizziness, and cognitive problems. These symptoms are similar to those seen in ME/CFS, POTS, and other conditions. The authors suggest that in some genetically vulnerable people, the vaccine might trigger an immune system response that affects the nervous system, but they emphasize that timing alone doesn't prove the vaccine caused the illness.
This work is important because it documents a pattern of post-vaccination symptom clusters that overlap significantly with ME/CFS presentations and calls for systematic investigation. Understanding whether and how vaccines might trigger ME/CFS-like illness in vulnerable populations could inform both vaccine safety monitoring and personalized medicine approaches for at-risk individuals.
This review does not establish that HPV vaccines cause ME/CFS or autonomic dysfunction—it is a descriptive case series review, not an epidemiological study. The authors explicitly note that temporal relationship between vaccination and symptom onset does not prove causation. The review cannot determine prevalence rates, identify causal mechanisms, or quantify actual risk in vaccinated populations.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Blitshteyn, Svetlana, Brinth, Louise, Hendrickson, Jeanne E, & Martinez-Lavin, Manuel (2018). Autonomic dysfunction and HPV immunization: an overview.. Immunologic research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12026-018-9036-1
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-blitshteyn-2018-autonomic-dysfunction,
author = {Blitshteyn, Svetlana and Brinth, Louise and Hendrickson, Jeanne E and Martinez-Lavin, Manuel},
title = {Autonomic dysfunction and HPV immunization: an overview.},
journal = {Immunologic research},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1007/s12026-018-9036-1},
note = {PubMed: 30478703},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/blitshteyn-2018-autonomic-dysfunction},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/blitshteyn-2018-autonomic-dysfunction
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.