---
title: "Experimental COVID Vaccines Are Giving People Fevers, Headaches, and More"
description: "Experimental COVID-19 vaccines are coming with an unfortunate amount of side effecte. Failing to disclose those risks could turn people off altogether."
date: "2020-07-22"
modified: "2020-07-22"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/experimental-covid-vaccines-fevers-headaches"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "side effects"
  - "vaccine"
---

# Experimental COVID Vaccines Are Giving People Fevers, Headaches, and More

![Experimental COVID-19 vaccines are coming with an unfortunate amount of side effecte. Failing to disclose those risks could turn people off altogether.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/experimental-covid-vaccines-fevers-headaches.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Image via Pxfuel/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

It's difficult to overstate the urgency of developing a safe, effective vaccine that protects against COVID-19.

While [some experimental vaccines](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/three-covid19-vaccines-ready-final-stage-testing>) seem to be doing okay on the "effective" part, *[Wired ](<https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-with-minor-side-effects-could-still-be-pretty-bad/>)*[reports](<https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-with-minor-side-effects-could-still-be-pretty-bad/>) that pharmaceutical companies may be understating the associated risks and side effects that come with them, which can include aches, serious fevers, and fatigue.

A team of scientists from Oxford University that [previously claimed](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/covid19-vaccine-ready-september>) its vaccine could be ready by September just put out a [press release](<https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/tl-tlu072020.php>) that calls the vaccine safe, despite an increase in "minor side effects" among study participants. But that, *Wired* reports, may be an aggressive marketing spin that prominent news outlets — including the *New York Times* and the *Wall Street Journal* — repeated.

By minimizing the harms associated with these experimental vaccines, *Wired* argues that the pharmaceutical companies that develop them, and the journalists that write about them, risk eroding public trust or even giving new ammunition to [the anti-vaxxer crowd](<https://futurism.com/decade-dumbasses-idiots-morons-science-tech>).

In the Oxford group's experiment, nearly ten percent of all the participants who took the vaccine ended up with a fever over 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, *Wired* reports. Historically, pharmaceutical companies have been [granted tremendous leeway](<https://undark.org/2018/09/04/fda-fast-tracking-flibanserin-drug-approval/>) in deciding what constitutes a minor versus a moderate or severe side effect.

But no matter what classification those fevers technically fall under, it's a reasonable bet that some people might opt out of a vaccine if they suddenly learn about scary-sounding side effects that had previously been hidden from them.

Do the benefits of a coronavirus vaccine — a preventative measure that might finally end this pandemic — outweigh the risk of aches, pains, and perhaps even a bad fever? Almost certainly yes. But mass inoculation requires mass trust — and keeping quiet about potential hazards along the way risks throwing it all out the window.

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)