Yehuda Shoenfeld (born February 14, 1948) [1] is an Israeli physician and autoimmunity researcher.
Yehuda Shoenfeld (born February 14, 1948) [1] is an Israeli physician and autoimmunity researcher.
Yehuda Shoenfeld works at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer and the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the incumbent of the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair for Research of Autoimmune Diseases. Shoenfeld is the editor of two journals, Harefuah (Medicine) in Hebrew with English abstracts and Israel Medical Association Journal (IMAJ). He is co-editor-in-chief of Autoimmunity Reviews , [2] and co-editor of the Journal of Autoimmunity , [3] and member of the editorial board of the Clinical Reviews in Allergy & Immunology. [4]
Schoenfeld, who has been characterized as an anti-vaccinationist, proposed a syndrome he calls Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants (ASIA), which purports to be an autoimmune response to vaccine adjuvants. [5] There is a lack of reproducible evidence for any causal relationship between adjuvant and autoimmune condition. [6] [7] He served on the scientific advisory board of the anti-vaccine group Children's Medical Safety Research Institute, has spoken at a number of antivaccination conferences, and has regularly appeared as an expert witness for people attempting to prove injury from vaccines in court. [8]
While two of Shoenfeld's scientific articles have been retracted, [9] [10] he has published more than 1920 papers. Also, he has authored and edited 40 books and contributed more than 350 chapters to various books, most recently Vaccines and Autoimmunity published by Wiley Blackwell. Prof. Shoenfeld is on the editorial board of 43 medical journals. [11] Nili Cohen, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, has pointed out that "no human being can publish 1,939 papers" unless Shoenfeld’s true contribution to this vast amount of publications is insignificant. [12] She calculated that 1.54 papers per week have been published on average. Besides, the majority of his cited papers have nothing to do with vaccines or autoimmunity.
A 2016 paper asserting a link between HPV vaccine and behavioural problems in mice, was retracted due to concerns about its methodology and data. [13]
Shoenfeld received the EULAR Prize (Austria, 2005). He received the Nelson’s Prize for Humanity and Science from U.C. Davis (U.S., 2008). He was honored as Doctoris Honoris Causa by Debrecen University (Hungary, 2009). He has awarded a Life Contribution Prize in Internal Medicine (Israel, 2012), as well as the ACR Master Award (U.S., 2013). He is an honorary member of the Hungarian Association of Rheumatology, Slovenian National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Physicians (UK). [11]
Sjögren syndrome or Sjögren's syndrome is a long-term autoimmune disease that primarily affects the body's exocrine glands, particularly the lacrimal and salivary glands. Common symptoms include dry mouth, dry eyes and often seriously affects other organ systems, such as the lungs, kidneys, and nervous system.
In immunology, autoimmunity is the system of immune responses of an organism against its own healthy cells, tissues and other normal body constituents. Any disease resulting from this type of immune response is termed an "autoimmune disease". Prominent examples include celiac disease, diabetes mellitus type 1, Henoch–Schönlein purpura, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren syndrome, eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Addison's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, and multiple sclerosis. Autoimmune diseases are very often treated with steroids.
Immunotherapy or biological therapy is the treatment of disease by activating or suppressing the immune system. Immunotherapies designed to elicit or amplify an immune response are classified as activation immunotherapies, while immunotherapies that reduce or suppress are classified as suppression immunotherapies. Immunotherapy is under preliminary research for its potential to treat various forms of cancer.
Immunodeficiency, also known as immunocompromisation, is a state in which the immune system's ability to fight infectious diseases and cancer is compromised or entirely absent. Most cases are acquired ("secondary") due to extrinsic factors that affect the patient's immune system. Examples of these extrinsic factors include HIV infection and environmental factors, such as nutrition. Immunocompromisation may also be due to genetic diseases/flaws such as SCID.
Non-obese diabetic or NOD mice, like biobreeding rats, are used as an animal model for type 1 diabetes. Diabetes develops in NOD mice as a result of insulitis, a leukocytic infiltrate of the pancreatic islets. The onset of diabetes is associated with a moderate glycosuria and a non-fasting hyperglycemia. It is recommended to monitor for development of glycosuria from 10 weeks of age; this can be carried out using urine glucose dipsticks. NOD mice will develop spontaneous diabetes when left in a sterile environment. The incidence of spontaneous diabetes in the NOD mouse is 60–80% in females and 20–30% in males. Onset of diabetes also varies between males and females: commonly, onset is delayed in males by several weeks. The mice are known to carry IgG2c allele.
In immunology, an adjuvant is a substance that increases or modulates the immune response to a vaccine. The word "adjuvant" comes from the Latin word adiuvare, meaning to help or aid. "An immunologic adjuvant is defined as any substance that acts to accelerate, prolong, or enhance antigen-specific immune responses when used in combination with specific vaccine antigens."
Toll-like receptor 9 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TLR9 gene. TLR9 has also been designated as CD289. It is a member of the toll-like receptor (TLR) family. TLR9 is an important receptor expressed in immune system cells including dendritic cells, macrophages, natural killer cells, and other antigen presenting cells. TLR9 is expressed on endosomes internalized from the plasma membrane, binds DNA, and triggers signaling cascades that lead to a pro-inflammatory cytokine response. Cancer, infection, and tissue damage can all modulate TLR9 expression and activation. TLR9 is also an important factor in autoimmune diseases, and there is active research into synthetic TLR9 agonists and antagonists that help regulate autoimmune inflammation.
Betty Diamond is an American physician and researcher. She is director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Northwell Health's Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, NY. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Protective autoimmunity is a condition in which cells of the adaptive immune system contribute to maintenance of the functional integrity of a tissue, or facilitate its repair following an insult. The term ‘protective autoimmunity’ was coined by Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), whose pioneering studies were the first to demonstrate that autoimmune T lymphocytes can have a beneficial role in repair, following an injury to the central nervous system (CNS). Most of the studies on the phenomenon of protective autoimmunity were conducted in experimental settings of various CNS pathologies and thus reside within the scientific discipline of neuroimmunology.
An autoimmune disease is a condition that results from an anomalous response of the adaptive immune system, wherein it mistakenly targets and attacks healthy, functioning parts of the body as if they were foreign organisms. It is estimated that there are more than 80 recognized autoimmune diseases, with recent scientific evidence suggesting the existence of potentially more than 100 distinct conditions. Nearly any body part can be involved.
Anti-double stranded DNA (Anti-dsDNA) antibodies are a group of anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) the target antigen of which is double stranded DNA. Blood tests such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunofluorescence are routinely performed to detect anti-dsDNA antibodies in diagnostic laboratories. They are highly diagnostic of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and are implicated in the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis.
Autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 (APS-1), is a subtype of autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome. It causes the dysfunction of multiple endocrine glands due to autoimmunity. It is a genetic disorder, inherited in autosomal recessive fashion due to a defect in the AIRE gene , which is located on chromosome 21 and normally confers immune tolerance.
Chronic spontaneous urticaria(CSU) also known as Chronic idiopathic urticaria(CIU) is defined by the presence of wheals, angioedema, or both for more than six weeks. Chronic spontaneous urticaria can be characterized by angioedema, excruciatingly itchy recurrent hives, or both. Chronic urticaria patients were found to have a higher prevalence of various autoimmune diseases. Many patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria report that certain triggers, such as stress, infections, specific foods, or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use, aggravate their condition.
Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA), or Shoenfeld's syndrome, is a hypothesised autoimmune disorder proposed by Israeli immunologist Yehuda Shoenfeld in 2011. According to Shoenfeld, the syndrome is triggered by exposure to adjuvants and includes four conditions: "post-vaccination symptoms", macrophagic myofasciitis, Gulf war syndrome, sick building syndrome, and siliconosis. Shoenfeld alleges that the syndrome is caused by adjuvants such as silicone, tetramethylpentadecane, pristane, and aluminum. However, causality is difficult to prove because ASIA only occurs in a small fraction of patients exposed to these adjuvants. Additionally, proponents of this theory allege that the disorder can manifest anywhere from 2 days to 23 years after exposure. Shoenfeld has also named Sjögren's syndrome as potentially being another facet of ASIA.
Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus or NPSLE refers to the neurological and psychiatric manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus. SLE is a disease in which the immune system attacks the body's own cells and tissues. It can affect various organs or systems of the body. It is estimated that over half of people with SLE have neuropsychiatric involvement.
Christopher Ariel Shaw is a Canadian neuroscientist and professor of ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia.
PLAID syndrome is an inherited condition characterised by antibody deficiency and immune dysregulation, first described in 2012. The name is an acronym of "PLCG2-associated antibody deficiency and immune dysregulation". It is characterised by cold-induced urticaria, autoimmunity, atopy and humoral immune deficiency.
The Children's Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI) was a United States based anti-vaccination group which funded a number of pseudoscientific studies, notably by Christopher Shaw of the University of British Columbia, and his collaborator Lucija Tomljenovic, and by Christopher Exley of Keele University, which purport to link aluminium in vaccines to autism. The studies have been rejected by the World Health Organization and some have been retracted. A claimed "vaccinated vs. unvaccinated" cohort study has also been debunked.
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