WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A new study shows mRNA vaccines are giving people AIDS.
OUR VERDICT
False. The study found slight immune differences, and it didn't link them to vaccines.
AAP FACTCHECK - A study of the immune patterns in vaccinated people does not show mRNA jabs are giving people AIDS, despite claims online.
The study observed subtle immune differences in some participants, which an author says do not resemble AIDS, and it did not find that vaccines caused those differences.
The claim appears in a Facebook post sharing a screenshot of an X post, reading: "Well, Yale just confirmed what we've said was going to happen for years.The mRNA shots are giving people AIDS.
"66% of the participants, [about] 585 days after the shot, have CD4 T-cell levels less than half of what they should be."
The 2025 Yale University pre-print study referenced in the post examined the immune features of post-vaccination syndrome (PVS), a set of chronic symptoms reported by a small number of people after receiving COVID-19 jabs.
Researchers compared the blood of 42 people reporting PVS, which is not officially recognised by health authorities, with that of 22 people in a healthy vaccinated control cohort.
The cohorts included people who had been vaccinated with mRNA as well as viral vector vaccines.
The study observed slight immune differences between the two groups, including two types of blood cells: CD4 t-cells, which were lower, and TNFa+ CD8 t-cells, which were higher.
"These findings reveal potential immune differences in individuals with PVS that merit further investigation to better understand this condition and inform future research into diagnostic and therapeutic approaches," it concluded.
Study co-author Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale University immunobiologist, said that the slight differences observed in t-cells among PVS participants did not resemble those in AIDS cases.
"However, none of these subtle changes are considered T cell 'depletion' and certainly not indicative of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)," she told AAP FactCheck.
Dr Iwasaki said in AIDS, the level of t-cells, known as leukocytes, falls 200 cells per cubic millimetre, but the PVS participants had t-cell counts within "the normal range".
"None of the leukocyte numbers were different between PVS and controls," she said.
The study noted that it could not definitively preclude that participants had not been infected with COVID-19 in the distant past.
Dr Iwasaki confirmed that the "small study" did not find that COVID-19 vaccines, such as mRNA jabs, had caused the observed immune differences among the PVS cohort.
"Larger studies are needed to validate these findings. Our study does not claim that vaccines are causing immune changes," she said.
"We are reporting that this is what we observe in people who have PVS."
The study emphasised that more research was needed to discern between "meaningful results and random fluctuations in the data."
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