In November 2021, in the New England Journal of Medicine, William Murphy, an immunologist at the University of California, Davis proposed that an autoimmune mechanism triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein might explain both Long Covid symptoms and some rare vaccine side effects.
Evidence from animal studies supports the idea that antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein might cause collateral damage, notes Harald Prüss, a neurologist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. In 2020, while hunting for antibody therapies for COVID-19, he and his colleagues discovered that of 18 antibodies they identified with potent effects against SARS-CoV-2, four also targeted healthy tissues in mice—a sign they could trigger autoimmune problems.
