Thomsen, Reimar Wernich, Öztürk, Buket, Pedersen, Lars et al. · American journal of epidemiology · 2020 · DOI
This large Danish study looked at whether the HPV vaccine (which prevents cervical cancer) was linked to symptoms like pain, fatigue, or heart problems in girls. Researchers compared vaccinated and unvaccinated girls over 14 years and found no increase in hospital visits for these symptoms in vaccinated girls. The symptoms they tracked increased over time in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children, suggesting other factors were responsible.
This study directly addresses concerns about vaccine safety and post-vaccination symptom clusters resembling ME/CFS-like conditions. For ME/CFS patients and researchers, understanding whether common vaccinations trigger or exacerbate disease is crucial for public health policy and identifying true disease triggers versus coincidental temporal associations.
This study cannot rule out rare or severe vaccine adverse events occurring outside hospital care, nor does it address whether vaccination might unmask or worsen pre-existing ME/CFS in susceptible individuals. Hospital records capture only moderate-to-severe cases, missing mild or undiagnosed cases managed in primary care. Observational data cannot prove causation if unmeasured confounding exists.
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
Thomsen, Reimar Wernich, Öztürk, Buket, Pedersen, Lars, Nicolaisen, Sia Kromann, Petersen, Irene, Olsen, Jørn, et al. (2020). Hospital Records of Pain, Fatigue, or Circulatory Symptoms in Girls Exposed to Human Papillomavirus Vaccination: Cohort, Self-Controlled Case Series, and Population Time Trend Studies.. American journal of epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwz284
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-thomsen-2020-hospital-records,
author = {Thomsen, Reimar Wernich and Öztürk, Buket and Pedersen, Lars and Nicolaisen, Sia Kromann and Petersen, Irene and Olsen, Jørn and Sørensen, Henrik Toft},
title = {Hospital Records of Pain, Fatigue, or Circulatory Symptoms in Girls Exposed to Human Papillomavirus Vaccination: Cohort, Self-Controlled Case Series, and Population Time Trend Studies.},
journal = {American journal of epidemiology},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1093/aje/kwz284},
note = {PubMed: 31899791},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/thomsen-2020-hospital-records},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/thomsen-2020-hospital-records
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