CBS: Failure to mask, vaccinate causing rise in heart attacks among young people

CBS News is suggesting that a failure to wear face masks and take the COVID-19 injections is to blame for a spike in heart attacks among young people.

CBS medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder made the comments this month during a segment with anchors Tony Dokoupil and Lilia Luciano in which they discussed a September study by Cedars-Sinai on excess deaths. The study found a spike in deaths related to acute myocardial infarctions among all age groups since 2020, though it was most pronounced for those 25-44.

“The excess death, defined as the difference between the observed and the predicted mortality rates, was most pronounced for the youngest (25–44 years) aged decedents, ranging from 23% to 34% for the youngest compared to 13%–18% for the oldest age groups,” said the study. 

The researchers acknowledged that "infections such as the flu can increase risk for heart disease and heart attack," but stressed that "the sharp rise in heart attack deaths is like nothing seen before."

"The dramatic rise in heart attacks during the pandemic has reversed what was a prior decade long steady improvement in cardiac deaths,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Yee Hui Yeo.

The researchers concluded that since the excess cardiac-related deaths occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, they must have occurred because of COVID-19. 

The study contrasts with a peer-reviewed study published last year by MIT which found that a 25% increase in cardiac events among young people in 2021 was entirely correlated to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Notably, another study published last year found that a rise in myocarditis and pericarditis cases — inflammation of the heart muscle and inflammation of the heart’s outer lining, respectively — is not due to COVID-19 infection.

But these other studies were not mentioned during the CBS News discussion. 

"So the 25- to 44-year-olds — you saw this 30% increase in the risk of death from heart attack. And that really is quite striking," said Gounder. "That's not a group, an age group, in which you normally see heart attacks, much less dying from a heart attack."

Dokoupil asked Gounder what she thinks might be the reason for the excess deaths. 

"You look at the years prior to the pandemic and the typical rate of heart attack death in that age group, and then you see it increase and you wonder, what’s the new variable? And so the pandemic is that the new variable?"

“That’s right,” answered Gounder, but then added that she is not sure what the cause is. "We don't know for sure. And in fact, these death certificates are probably not even capturing the fact that [the victims] had COVID. They're really just saying that you died from a heart attack or not."

Gounder then suggested that the excess deaths were due to a failure to wear masks and take the COVID-19 injections.

"What we do know, however, is that younger people were less likely to protect themselves against COVID than older people, less likely to mask, less likely to take other mitigation measures, and they were also further back in line to get vaccinated. . .Those might have been a factor here," claimed Gounder.

In addition to the vaccines being correlated to cardiac events among young people, it has been conclusively confirmed that masks offer little to no protection against viruses, including COVID-19.

Gounder is the editor-at-large for Kaiser Health News, the news arms of the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). KFF is a dark money organization in Washington, D.C. funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Twitter, Google, Facebook and Poynter, among others. The foundation’s board comprises executives and political operatives, including Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Kevin Merida and former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who was also an architect of Obamacare. 

KFF President Drew Altman, who founded Kaiser Health News now run by Gounder, is credited for the CDC’s policy to mask children. In August 2021 he shared a KFF poll with the Biden administration showing that masking children is popular among Democrats and advised the CDC, Health and Human Services (HHS) Department and US Attorney General Vivek Murthy to recommend forcing children to wear masks.

The CDC issued the recommendation three days later.

CBS News is far from the only mainstream news outlet to pin cardiac events among young people on factors other than the COVID-19 vaccines.

Last month, 44-year-old MSNBC anchor Yasmin Vossoughian, who is fully vaccinated, blamed her sudden bout of myopericarditis on the common cold.