US doctor makes unsupported claims on RSV vaccines

US health officials have approved vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an infection that can be deadly for some patients, after concluding they were effective in preventing severe illness with few serious adverse effects. However, a doctor who was suspended for spreading medical misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic is making unsubstantiated claims about the safety of the shots, which are recommended for individuals with certain risk factors.

“RSV shots: All risk and no benefit,” is the caption of a video posted on Facebook, Instagram and X on November 14, 2024 by Mary Talley Bowden.

In the clip, which keyword searches reveal was taken from a longer interview Bowden gave to Frankie Stockes, she claims patients should avoid RSV vaccines based on the “high risk” of adverse reactions.

“They were only studied for seven days. They only reported adverse events for seven days,” she claimed on the October 23 episode of the Stew Peters Show — a program AFP has repeatedly fact-checked for spreading vaccine misinformation.

Bowden is an otolaryngologist who was suspended in 2021 by Houston Methodist Hospital for spreading Covid-19 misinformation — including pushing ivermectin as a treatment, despite there being no evidence to back its use against the virus.

In 2023, she faced a formal complaint from the Texas Medical Board for prescription and patient confidentiality violations.

Bowden has regularly used social media to spread misinformation on vaccines as part of a movement challenging public health authorities and widespread research on life-saving inoculations.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that RSV kills some 10,000 older Americans each year (archived here) and poses risks for infants and young children (archived here).

Experts say the RSV vaccines were rigorously tested and the benefits of the shot outweigh the risks for many of the oldest members of society, and during pregnancy.

“The evidence is clear; individuals should get vaccinated if they have conditions that place them at risk for severe disease,” Angela Branche, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center (archived here), wrote in the medical journal The Lancet (archived here).

Vaccine efficacy

RSV vaccines were first approved in the United States and Europe in 2023. There are now three shots for adults over the age of 60, with Pfizer’s Abrysvo also approved to be given in the final weeks of pregnancy to help protect newborns.

Bowden claims researchers are not studying the impact of the shots on mortality and hospitalization, but a paper published in October 2024 in The Lancet showed “the vaccine was effective in preventing respiratory syncytial virus-associated hospitalizations and emergency department encounters” during the 2023-24 season (archived here).

Patricia Winokur, executive dean of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine (archived here), said as with other respiratory diseases, infection with or vaccination against RSV does not create sterile immunity or “an immune response that completely prevents disease for the rest of your life.”

The goal is to “create a vaccine that prevents the most severe disease manifestations that result in hospitalization or death,” she said in a November 20 email. “RSV has significant morbidity and mortality in older adults and young children so reducing severe disease is an important goal.”

The American Medical Association reports: “RSV vaccines appear to provide some protection for at least two RSV seasons” (archived here).

Adverse events

Winokur also said Bowden is “not accurate” to claim adverse reactions to the shots were only studied for seven days.

As the lead investigator for the University of Iowa’s part of the clinical trial for Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, Winokur said researchers asked participants to use a diary and answer specific questions about symptoms following the shot for seven days. “Then we question people for all new or worsening medical conditions or unusual events for many, many months.”

She said they follow “severe events” including hospitalizations or deaths for a year.

It is not clear what data Bowden examined to claim that some 12,000 adverse events were associated with the RSV vaccines. The CDC says the most common reactions to the shots are “pain, redness, and swelling where the shot is given, fatigue (feeling tired), fever, headache, nausea, diarrhea, and muscle or joint pain” (archived here). As with any vaccine or medicine, there is also a rare risk of severe allergic reaction.

With Abrysvo and Arexvy, a shot from GlaxoSmithKline, a few people in the clinical trials developed Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) — defined by Yale Medicine as “a neurological condition in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy nerve cells” — in the days following the shot.

A presentation to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in October 2024 found the risk of GBS is fewer than 10 cases per million vaccinations (archived here).

The trials for Moderna’s mRESVIA vaccine, which uses the same mRNA technology as the company’s Covid-19 shot, did not show any reports of GBS.

In June 2023, the ACIP recommended RSV vaccination for all adults over the age of 60, but it voted in June 2024 to update the guidance to focus on those 75 and older (archived here).

“Based on currently available evidence, ACIP concluded that the benefits of RSV vaccination did not clearly outweigh the potential harms in adults aged 60–74 years without risk factors for severe RSV disease.”

Winokur told AFP: “With any new vaccine, we roll it out to the public using an analysis of who is most at risk. As we gain even more experience with millions of doses, we learn about some of those really rare side effects (like Guillain-Barré) and consider the risk benefit ratio for additional populations.”

More of AFP’s reporting on vaccine misinformation is available here.