One year later: A second look at CDC’s myocarditis claim
On June 2, 2021, Israel’s Health Ministry hesitantly reported seeing a possible link between Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot and myocarditis.
“There is some probability for a possible link between the second vaccine dose and the onset of myocarditis among young men aged 16 to 30,” the ministry said in a statement. “This link was found to be stronger among the younger age group, 16 to 19, compared to other age groups. This link became weaker the older the vaccinated individual is. In most cases myocarditis took the form of mild illness that passed within a few days.”
While Israeli media began downplaying the danger as soon as the next day, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took more time to make its judgment.
Later in the month, the CDC issued a statement, along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and a host of other medical bodies.
The statement read:
“The facts are clear: this is an extremely rare side effect, and only an exceedingly small number of people will experience it after vaccination. Importantly, for the young people who do, most cases are mild, and individuals recover often on their own or with minimal treatment. In addition, we know that myocarditis and pericarditis are much more common if you get COVID-19, and the risks to the heart from COVID-19 infection can be more severe.” (emphasis original)
Looking at the statement one year later, it appears science has not been kind to the CDC.
A study published in April reviewed the records of 787,968 patients of Israel's largest HMO Clalit Health Services and found no link between COVID-19 infection and myocarditis or pericarditis.
"Our data suggest that there is no increase in the incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis in COVID-19 recovered patients compared to uninfected matched controls,” concluded the study. “Further longer-term studies will be needed to estimate the incidence of pericarditis and myocarditis in patients diagnosed with COVID-19.”
To add science to injury, a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that the advent of the COVID-19 vaccine saw a 25% increase in cardiovascular events.
The researchers studied emergency calls in Israel, one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world, over a two-and-a-half-year period spanning 2019-2021. Specifically, they looked at emergency calls reporting either cardiac arrests [CA] or acute coronary syndrome [ACS] in the 16-39 age group.
The study also aimed to determine if the uptick in cardiovascular events was associated with COVID-19 or the COVID-19 vaccine. The findings showed that for the period of January-May 2021, while myocarditis and pericarditis were not specified, there was a 25% increase in emergency cardiovascular events compared with the same period in 2019 and 2020, and entirely associated with the COVID-19 shot, not with COVID-19 infections.
