Did a woman claim Pfizer-BioNtech's COVID-19 vaccine had triggered an incurable rash on her face? No, that's not true: The social media video in which the claim appears has been edited. In a longer version of the clip, the woman explains she had been suffering from eczema, an incurable skin condition, before she was vaccinated. She says she does not believe the vaccine is solely responsible for exacerbating her disease, but rather that it was part of a "clusterfuck" of adverse circumstances.
Medical research suggests that COVID vaccines may provoke eczema flare-ups, but specialists stress that this does not mean people who have the disorder should forego the jab.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok on May 14, 2023, with the title (translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff):
Subject who's suffering Pfizer vaccinated . They can't cure her She trusted the system
A tearful, red-faced young woman says in English (at the 2:22 mark in the longer version of her video, available on other websites):
I'm just so frickin' -- fuck -- fed up! I don't want to be that person that fuckin' cries all the time, but god-fucking-dammit! Really? Like, I feel like my whole life's been stripped from me and this is so frickin' painful! Ugh! Yep, I'm that person who cries on this app, but it's not about a boy, it's about my freakin' life! Um, ugh! Anyone else, anyone else notice this? Like, I was literally just following doctors' orders, following the government mandates, and now this is my life!
Here is a screenshot from the TikTok video taken at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Jun 16 07:50:10 2023 UTC)
The TikTok video fails to include the initial portion of the woman's rant, which can be seen on other websites. In the extended version, at the 0:21 timestamp, she utters the following words:
So, in 2020, I had just won a fitness competition. I had maybe had a small patch of eczema on my hand, maybe my inner arm here, and that was it. Never on my face. Never ever ever ever. I had my eczema so well under control for 29 years that, at that point, I was not actively working with a dermatologist. But let me tell you this: After every vaccine shot -- and I had three -- my eczema got worse. And I'm not saying that the vaccine triggered my TSW [topical steroid withdrawal, a severe reaction to eczema medications]. I think it was a full, perfect storm -- clusterfuck -- of things that happened to me.
At the 1:31 mark, she continues:
Fast-forward to January of 2022. I've gone full-blown TSW withdrawals... I can't even begin to tell you how upset I am! Holy hell! Do you know that I'm paying $1,164 on a medication called Dupixent -- by the way, that's half off -- on a drug that I did not need prior to this. Prior to the vaccines.
Eczema is an umbrella term for seven types of dermatological disorders. The most common type, atopic dermatitis, "results from an overactive immune system that causes the skin barrier to become dry and itchy," according to the U.S. National Eczema Association. There is no known cure for eczema, but it can be treated with steroidal creams and other medications, the association says.
Preliminary research hypothesizes that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can cause eczema to break out in people who are prone to the disease. In a July 26, 2021, letter to the editor of the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, scientists discussed the cases of two patients who experienced eczema eruptions after receiving the jab:
While the cause of these generalized eczematous reactions is unknown, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may act as an environmental trigger in a genetically susceptible individual. In both cases, the patients had a personal or family history of atopy, perhaps making them more susceptible to an eczematous reaction ... It is important to study these reactions to facilitate optimal management of patients who develop them. In this series of two patients who developed generalized eczematous reactions to the Pfizer- BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the reaction occurred with both doses, was managed by oral or systemic glucocorticoids and did not prevent safe administration of both doses of the vaccine.
A study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology on December 28, 2021, found that atopic dermatitis was also "associated with increased odds" of the COVID infection itself.
Guidance on the website of the French Pierre Fabre Eczema Foundation says eczema flareups are a possibility with any vaccine, but stresses that the condition "is in no way a contraindication to vaccination whatever the vaccine."
