A new study has found something that most vaccine researchers were not specifically looking for: people who received COVID-19 vaccination had dramatically lower rates of developing a serious inflammatory eye condition called idiopathic uveitis in the months following vaccination.
The study, led by Matthew J. Schulgit and Suraj Bala of Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute and published online June 22, 2026, in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, analyzed aggregated electronic health records from multiple U.S. health systems spanning 2006 to 2025. The findings: patients vaccinated against COVID had an 82 percent lower risk for new-onset idiopathic uveitis at 3 months, a 75 percent lower risk at 6 months, and a 65 percent lower risk at 12 months compared to matched control individuals who were not vaccinated.
