Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 30/1/2026; Author: Aljaž Primožič
Infectious disease and intensive care specialist Nina Grasselli Kmet says the two studies cited in posts by a Slovenian website and a British tabloid have significant limitations, while robust evidence shows that vaccination has saved many lives.
On 3 January, the website Planet lepote published an article about alleged new scientific findings that supposedly “link numerous unexplained illnesses to COVID-19 vaccines.” It claimed that these findings vindicate conspiracy theorists who, it says, “were right from the very beginning.”
As previously reported, a range of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines have circulated in Slovenia in recent years. Among them are claims that vaccinated people are the main spreaders of COVID-19, that vaccination increases the risk of miscarriage eightfold, and that the AstraZeneca vaccine is dangerous for people under 30.
Planet lepote asserted that “in the final days of 2025, the scientific world was shaken by a report published in a high-profile (and partly paywalled) investigation by the Daily Mail.” The independent organisation Media Bias/Fact Check, which assesses media bias, rates the Daily Mail as right-leaning and also as a questionable source due to its frequent use of unverified claims and poor-quality sourcing.
On 30 December last year, the British tabloid reported on a possible link between COVID-19 vaccines and the occurrence of certain previously unexplained diseases. It referred to a research letter examining a potential association between vaccination and rare systemic inflammatory disorders – TAFRO syndrome and Castleman disease. Research letters do not represent full-scale studies, they are early, preliminary or limited findings.
The research letter, published in early 2026 in the journal Immunology Letters, is based on data from 25 patients in the Nagasaki region of Japan who were diagnosed with one of the two conditions. The authors collected data between November 2014 and October 2024: seven patients were identified before the COVID-19 pandemic and 18 during it. The number of cases appeared to increase after the start of vaccination, and in some patients symptoms developed shortly afterwards.
Both the Daily Mail and the authors of the letter stressed that these findings do not prove a direct causal link between vaccination and the diseases, and that additional studies would be needed to confirm such a connection.
An analysis by Razkrinkavanje.si found that, despite citing the Daily Mail, Planet lepote did not rely on the same study as the British tabloid. Instead, it referred to two completely unrelated studies, one published at the start of this year and one in 2024, that used different methodologies.
According to Planet lepote, the Daily Mail article summarised a new study by the Global Vaccine Data Network consortium and several independent laboratory studies. This research allegedly confirmed, for the first time on a global scale, a link between COVID-19 vaccination and certain severe health complications, including an increased risk of rare neurological disorders such as Guillain–Barré syndrome.
Planet lepote described as a major breakthrough the purported explanation for previously “unexplained symptoms” following COVID-19 vaccination, which it attributed to several mechanisms, including the formation of autoantibodies against receptors used by the coronavirus to enter human cells. In doing so, the website referred to a large international epidemiological study published in 2024 in the peer-reviewed journal Vaccine.
That study analysed data from nearly 99 million vaccinated people in eight countries, focusing on the occurrence of certain rare safety signals within 42 days after COVID-19 vaccination. These rates were compared with the expected background rates from the pre-pandemic period. The researchers found that for most of the conditions analysed – such as Bell’s palsy and thrombocytopenia – post-vaccination occurrence was within the range normally observed in the general population.
However, the authors did confirm some already known and extremely rare safety signals that may be associated with COVID-19 vaccination. These include an increased risk of neurological complications such as Guillain–Barré syndrome (190 observed cases versus 76 expected) and cardiovascular complications such as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (69 observed versus 21 expected) after the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as myocarditis following mRNA vaccines.
Slovenia’s Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices explains on its website that a safety signal is “information about a new or known adverse drug reaction that suggests a new possible causal association, or a new aspect of a known association, with a medicinal product,” and therefore requires further evaluation. Experts identify safety signals based on various information sources, including adverse-event reports from healthcare professionals and patients.
Further research is needed
Nina Grasselli Kmet, a specialist in infectious diseases and intensive care medicine at the Clinic for Infectious Diseases and Febrile Conditions of the Ljubljana University Medical Centre, told Razkrinkavanje.si that the claims made by Planet lepote are misleading because they are based on “an incorrect and lay interpretation of statistics and contain false facts and pathophysiological connections.” (Pathophysiology deals with the mechanisms that lead to disease.)
She warned that both cited studies have important limitations and fail to account for some key factors, while high-quality research consistently shows that vaccination has saved many lives and significantly reduced COVID-19 mortality.
The study cited by Planet lepote, she explained, used an observed-versus-expected (OE) analysis, in which researchers compare the number of observed cases of a condition with the number expected based on background rates. Such analyses can identify potential statistical deviations or signals, but cannot determine whether vaccination actually causes the observed complications.
Grasselli Kmet added that the analyses conducted by the Global Vaccine Data Network consortium drew on highly heterogeneous data from countries with different healthcare infrastructures, surveillance systems and reporting standards. They also involved different vaccination strategies, vaccine types, dosing schedules and priority groups.
“Unfortunately, [the study] did not compare the results according to important factors that can influence outcomes, such as pre-existing health conditions, genetic factors, ethnic profiles and behavioural patterns,” she said.
Another limitation, she noted, is that the authors did not consider whether vaccinated individuals had previously been infected with COVID-19 or became infected within the first 42 days after vaccination – even though “it is well known that COVID-19 infection itself causes the listed complications far more frequently than vaccination does.”
According to Grasselli Kmet, the research letter reported on by the Daily Mail also has major limitations. Its design and small sample size mean that the findings cannot be generalised to the general population. The increase in reported cases of TAFRO syndrome and Castleman disease during the pandemic could also reflect greater awareness of COVID-19 and improved diagnostics in the post-pandemic period. She stressed that the number of patients included is “absolutely too small for a meaningful statistical evaluation.”
Planet lepote has been informed of these findings. We will publish their response when we have received it.
The claim that new scientific studies prove conspiracy theorists “were right from the very beginning” is manipulative. Planet lepote either summarised credible studies in misleading layman terms, or presented preliminary findings as established facts, without acknowledging their limitations.
