[We have known] for decades a variety of compounds that are able to induce autoimmunity in animal models and used in clinical practice to increase the immunogenicity of vaccines, but also known to be able, in genetic susceptible individuals, to induce autoimmune diseases.
GWS [Gulf War Syndrome] was not a result of the exposition to weapons but rather induced by the intense vaccination program that they were submitted to.
[P]ost vaccination muscle disease described… is a miofasceitis that has the presence of macrophages with aluminum inclusions, which occurs associated with vaccination.
[A]luminum can persist in the local of injection, up to 10 years after vaccine administration, which can explain the persistence of this condition in some individuals.
These conditions and other observations… have motivated the definition of the ASIA syndrome, with the criteria proposed by Shoenfeld…
These criteria, if properly validated, are of great clinical relevance, as they raise a major clinical doubt on the classification of some patients with chronic pain syndromes, as chronic fatigue syndrome, or even fibromyalgia.
[R]eviewing the recent exposition to adjuvants and other potential exogenous stimulus seems to be a wise attitude. This is also in line with the characteristic symptoms of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome that frequently occur in patients with well-defined Lyme disease, even after adequate treatment.
If upcoming research will confirm these observations and validate the ASIA/Shoenfeld criteria, a major paradigm shift will have to occur in the way rheumatologists perceive some cases of diffuse chronic pain.