The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
But, you know, what was happening is antibody-dependent enhancement wasn't quite known at the time, but you know, much research has...you know, decades of research since then have been done, and it's now known that antibody-dependent enhancement occurred. So the antibodies that were generated from the RSV vaccine were binding to the virus. They were not neutralizing it, and, in fact, they were making the immune system worse.
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Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
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So, antibody-dependent enhancement refers to when your immune system makes antibodies against a pathogen that is...it's non-functional. So the antibodies can bind to the pathogen, for example, in our interest here, a virus. They can bind to it, but they don't neutralize the virus. And, in fact, not only do they not neutralize it, they can activate other immune cells to become more aggressive and cause more damage.
So, in the end, the immune system can end up being more damaging after being exposed to a virus than if it hadn't previously had those antibodies. And so when I say previously had those antibodies, most often I'm referring to vaccine-induced antibodies.