A study of adolescents in Hong Kong found abnormalities in the flexibility of the heart chambers and the persistence of scarring in the heart muscle one year after vaccination.| Photo: EFE/Marcial Guillén
As noted in the package insert of Pfizer’s (Comirnaty) mRNA vaccine against Covid, one of its known side effects, “more common in younger men”, is inflammation of the heart (myocarditis) and its lining (pericarditis). The incidence is low but relevant, particularly in men, and may alter the costeffectiveness of the vaccine. Previously, various studies suggested that the effects of vaccine myocarditis lasted for a few days. But a team of 10 researchers from Hong Kong challenges that idea in an article published in August in the journal Circulation, which is affiliated with the American Heart Association (AHA), an influential medical organization. In their sample, half of the teenagers diagnosed with the side effect had scarring on their hearts up to a year after taking the vaccine.
Scientists conducted a series of heart tests on 40 young people between the ages of 12 and 17, including 33 men. Because this is a small sample, the results should be viewed with great caution. The study is important because of the time between diagnosis and reevaluation of up to a year and the detail of the investigations. Electrocardiograms, echocardiograms, and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging were performed.
The authors comment that the heartbeat function of the ventricles (the heart’s largest chambers) appears normal in patients, but they have found impairment in the flexibility of these chambers to pump blood and the persistence of scarring in the heart muscle in up to half of these Teenager. Another June 2022 study that followed 35 patients under the age of 18 for a shorter period of time (three to eight months) found the same problems in 70 to 75% of adolescents.
The two anomalies found “are indicators of subclinical myocardial dysfunction,” i.e. problems in the heart muscle that are not noticed by patients and increase their risk. “There is a possible longterm effect on physical performance and cardiac functional reserve during stress,” explain the authors.
Was Covid really more dangerous for young hearts?
A study that does not suffer from the problem of small sample size included 23 million Scandinavians and was published in April 2022 in JAMA Cardiology, the cardiology journal of the American Medical Association. In young men aged 16 to 24, the risk of developing myocarditis was four times and 13 times higher than the risk of developing myocarditis after taking two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines against Covid, respectively. Same problem after getting infected with the disease.
This comparison does not mean that the risks compared are high: both are low, but the incidence of vaccine myocarditis in boys was much higher than the incidence of myocarditis possibly caused by Covid. The period analyzed was one month after the doses or the positive test for Covid.
Israel warned and the United States ignored it
A report published in September in the Epoch Times newspaper showed that emails obtained under the Access to Information Act were exchanged between officials at the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and officials at the Israeli Ministry of Health. The news shows that in February 2021, the Middle Eastern country alerted the US to “a large number of reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following administration of the Pfizer vaccine.” The warning was marked as “very important” in the emails.
However, two months later, thenCDC Director Rochelle Walensy insisted at a White House press conference that “we have not seen any reports of vaccine myocarditis.” In the same month, April 2021, the Times of Israel newspaper reported two deaths related to the issue. The CDC did not conduct a more serious statistical analysis of postvaccination myocarditis until the following year.
Unlike the United States, which continues to recommend the mRNA vaccine starting at six months of age, European countries such as Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany and France have suspended use of the Moderna vaccine (which has a higher concentration of mRNA). People less than 30 years old, two years ago. The UK is now only providing booster doses free of charge to people over 65 and other groups at risk for Covid19. The American population is showing a loss of trust in their health authorities. Despite pleas from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), only 3% wanted to take the final dose.
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