A man got 217 COVID-19 vaccinations. Here's what happened
The man reported receiving 217 shots between June 2021 and Nov. 2023.
(The Hill) -- A German man who intentionally received more than 200 COVID-19 vaccinations said he did it for "private reasons," according to researchers.
The Lancet, a scientific journal, published a report earlier this week that looked into the 62-year-old man from Magdeburg — a town roughly 2 hours from Berlin — who deliberately received 217 of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine over a period of 29 months.
Researchers noted that he received the vaccines outside of a clinical study and against national vaccine recommendations.
They also concluded that although the man’s “hypervaccination” did not result in any side effects, it also did not significantly improve his immune response.
A public prosecutor in Magdeburg opened an investigation into the case alleging fraud, but no criminal charges were filed. Researchers filed a request with the man, who was not named in the study, to analyze the immunological response to abnormal vaccine dosage.
He provided medical information and donated blood and saliva. The man did not report any vaccine-related side effects and has not tested positive for COVID since the experts began examining his case in May 2022.
Still, the researchers were unable to determine whether the initial recommended doses prevented him from testing positive, or if the additional vaccines were a direct cause.
The man reported receiving 217 shots between June 2021 and Nov. 2023. Of the reported vaccinations, 134 were confirmed by the prosecutor through vaccination center documentation and 83 were self-reported by the man.
The vaccines, according to the report, were a mixture of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. He also received shots from Johnson & Johnson and self-reported a booster from Sanofi.
The researchers noted that while the man did not experience any vaccine-related side effects, they “do not endorse hypervaccination as a strategy to enhance adaptive immunity.”
According to CNN, the man was arrested by police in early March 2022 after authorities became suspicious that he was receiving vaccination cards and selling them to third parties.
His was arrested during a time when proof of vaccination was required to access public venues and travel throughout Europe, the outlet noted.