Nobody Told Me This Before I Got the Shingles Vaccine...

I am not a doctor, am not opposed to vaccinations in general, and have gotten many over my lifetime and expect to get a few more (Tetanus, anyone?!), but I have to say that I have soured quite a bit on the near-religious devotion to the religion of vaccines. 

Like any drug or medical product, vaccines pose risks, and one hopes that they provide benefits that, in most cases, outweigh those risks. I remember the first time I ever read the complete literature of a vaccine I was getting, and I sort of shuddered--the list of potential side effects was long and included a tiny chance of death--but I still rolled up my sleeve and took the shot (actually, I had no choice if I wanted to go to school, but I would have done it anyway). 

That experience stuck with me, even as I continued to get my shots. It firmly placed in my mind that vaccines — at least effective ones — provide most people benefits and society as a whole a great benefit, but the deal being made is that a few people will pay a price — large or small — for the good of the whole. 

That was a good lesson, and one that should be reinforced. We should inform everyone about the potential risks and benefits, explain why the vaccine is likely to help the person in particular, outline the societal benefits, and then ask people for their consent. Lay it all out there, and in a society where social trust is high and continues to be earned, most people will choose to accept the vaccine, assuming the risks are relatively low. 

That model, if it ever truly existed, is long gone. Vaccines are now revered almost as a religious rite of passage, not a tool in the medical and public health toolbox, and as a result, informed consent has gone out the window, and a willingness to hide problems, even vaccine dangers and ineffectiveness, has become an epidemic. 

Informing people of risks is seen as creating vaccine skepticism. It never occurs to the public health priests that lying or shading the truth increases skepticism far more than anything else. 

"If they lied about THIS, what else have they lied about?" 

I was thinking about this as I read this study about the 11-fold increase in risk for people getting the Shingles vaccine. It's not a fly-by-night study, and is being published by Oxford, and it shows that the risk of getting Shingles increases 11-fold in the period between the first shot and the second, which confers decent, if not perfect, immunity. 

🚨New Self-Controlled Study published 9 September 2025, shows adults ≥65, taking Shingrix® GSK's Shingles Vaccine, "transiently" increases their risk of contracting shingles by 11 times compared to the pre-vaccination period (unvaccinated), according to Shetty et al.

Source:… pic.twitter.com/wFe4J1H0sk

— VaccineMole (@VaccineMole) September 11, 2025

The study does not indicate that the Shingles vaccine is bad or that you shouldn't get it, or at least I can't comment on that without knowing more. It indicates that once you get the second shot, your risk of getting Shingles plummets below baseline, indicating that the vaccine SERIES does what it is supposed to do. 

But in between shot 1 and shot 2? Watch out. Your risk skyrockets above baseline by 1100%. 

Methods

Two independent datasets- a general practice dataset and a statewide linked dataset- were analysed separately using self-controlled case series analyses (SCCS) with 21-days post-vaccination as the risk window. The observation period was 1 January 2023 to 30 April 2025. Adults ≥18 years old were included, with analyses stratified by age (<65 and ≥65 years) and sex. We calculated the rate of incident shingles in time periods relative to vaccination, along with attributable risk and the risk of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).

Results

The primary care SCCS analysis found an 11-fold increase (Risk Incidence [RI] 10·96, 95% CI 10.34, 11.62, p <0·0001) in shingles presentations within 21 days post-dose 1 of RZV vaccination in adults ≥65 in the general practice dataset only. No increase was detected in younger adults. Following dose two the risk of shingles presentations was reduced in all age groups. Vaccine recipients had an 73% reduction in shingles following 2 doses. PHN risk was not increased.

Conclusions

There is a transient increase in shingles presentations shortly after dose one of RZV vaccination in adults ≥65 years of age; however, these cases are likely to be mild and there is clear evidence of vaccine effectiveness after the completion of two doses.

Yikes. That would be nice to know when you are deciding to get a Shingles vaccine. 

Since this study is new, I can't complain that I wasn't informed of it, and I am not angry that nobody told me about this potential risk. Although I do note that when I got the shot, nobody really said much about any potential risks. In fact, when I get vaccines, I get told a lot more about latex and egg allergies than about what the vaccines do or don't do. 

Vaccines are presented as almost gifts from the gods, with no risks and certain benefits, and the public, until recently, swallowed this whole. So much so that any discussions about potential downsides have been seen as conspiracy theorizing and fearmongering. 

This is cultish behavior, not reverence for science. Science is about maximizing knowledge and information, even if the information leads to places you wish people didn't go. And sometimes I wonder whether the astounding success of the Smallpox vaccine hasn't led people in the public health professions to have lost all perspective on the costs and benefits that attach to all decisions. 

My experience with the Shingles vaccine was totally uneventful, and I certainly hope that having taken it reduced my chance of contracting the disease enough to help me avoid ever getting it. I certainly wouldn't presume to recommend it or not to you, but I likely would get it again, even knowing the risks. 

Maybe not. Hard to say. I already dodged that bullet, so who knows?

But I will be disappointed if the people taking the Shingles vaccine a year from now aren't informed of this study. More than disappointed, really. It will be yet another indication that the people we trust to care for us don't respect us at all.