Do COVID Vaccines Cause Bell’s Palsy?

Steve Kirsch, in a tweet, claims that COVID vaccination is a major cause of Bell’s Palsy, using VAERS as proof to back up his claim.

Bell’s palsy happens when the muscles on one side of a person’s face suddenly become weak or even paralyzed. Doctors aren’t sure exactly what causes it, but it may happen after the body fights an infection. In very rare cases, it has also happened after someone gets a vaccine.

Scientists have watched and studied cases of Bell’s palsy closely since the COVID vaccines came out. Observational studies show that Bell’s palsy happens about as often in vaccinated people as it does in people who haven’t been vaccinated.

Some larger reviews of many studies found a small increase in Bell’s palsy among people who got the vaccine, but the difference was very small. What’s more, the risk of getting Bell’s palsy from a COVID infection is much higher than the risk of getting it from the vaccine.
Steve Kirsch’s claims come from a system called VAERS, which stands for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. According to the VAERS website, anyone can send in a report if they think they had a bad reaction after a vaccine. But that doesn’t mean the vaccine actually caused the problem.

VAERS is managed in part by the CDC, but the CDC only keeps the data—it doesn’t check or confirm each report. The VAERS website even warns that reports can be incomplete, incorrect, or unproven. Because of this, scientists must be very careful when looking at VAERS data and not jump to conclusions.

This interview is based on a paper that claims to have discovered an ‘off-switch’ for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. In it, Dr. McCullough says that one solution to “detox” against mRNA vaccines is to introduce small interfering RNA (siRNA), similar to mRNA along with ribonuclease targeting chimeras (RIBOTACs)

McCullough has made multiple claims, including in his paper below, that lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) can cause injury and harm. Yet in his new procedure, both siRNA and RIBOTACs use lipid nanoparticles to enter the cells to target mRNA. If using lipids to allow siRNA and RIBOTACs to enter our cells is seen as safe, we can also assume the mRNA from vaccination is safe.

McCullough thinks this procedure is necessary because of worries about how mRNA vaccines spread throughout the body.

His idea about “systemic biodistribution” comes from misconstrued data. A study in rats looked at lipid nanoparticles after mRNA vaccine injections and their distribution in organs over time. The data show that most of the nanoparticles stayed where they were injected, and some went to the liver. In the ovaries, the highest amount of nanoparticles found was very, very small (only about 0.095% after 48 hours). This amount might be even smaller in human ovaries because the dose used in the COVID vaccine is much less than what they used in the rat study.

Would this off-switch work? We doubt Dr. McCullough’s science very much, and it is unnecessary because while tiny amounts of mRNA may persist in the body, the vast majority usually degrades within days.