Ablin, Jacob N, Shoenfeld, Yehuda, Buskila, Dan · Journal of autoimmunity · 2006 · DOI
This review examines whether infections and vaccinations might trigger fibromyalgia and related conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome. Researchers found that certain infections (like Lyme disease and hepatitis C) have been linked to fibromyalgia, and some people report symptoms starting after vaccinations, but antibiotics and antivirals don't appear to help treat fibromyalgia effectively. The authors suggest that vaccinations might act as one trigger among several factors that together cause these conditions.
This review is important for ME/CFS patients and researchers because it identifies infection and vaccination as potential triggers for post-infectious illness and explores mechanistic pathways that may apply to ME/CFS, which shares significant overlap with fibromyalgia. Understanding multi-factorial trigger models may help explain why some people develop persistent symptoms after infection or vaccination while others do not.
This review does not prove that infections or vaccinations directly cause fibromyalgia or ME/CFS—it documents associations without establishing causation. The absence of clinical benefit from antimicrobial treatment does not rule out an infectious trigger, only that treating the infection doesn't resolve the resulting condition. This is a literature review, not original research, so it cannot validate any new mechanistic claims.
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 →
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