Autopsies show COVID-19 vaccination likely caused fatal heart inflammation: study

A serious side effect linked to COVID-19 vaccines can lead to death, according to a new study.

Post-vaccination myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, has been identified in a subset of people who died “unexpectedly” at home within 20 days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. The researchers analyzed the autopsies that had been performed on the people and conducted additional research, including studying tissue samples.

The researchers started with a group of 35 people, but excluded 10 from further analysis because other causes of death were identified. Of the other 25, the researchers identified signs of myocarditis in five.

All five people received a Moderna or Pfizer vaccine within seven days of death, with an average of 2.5 days. The median age was 58 years old. None of the people had a COVID-19 infection before being vaccinated, and nasal swabs came back negative.

The results of the autopsy, combined with the lack of evidence of other causes of death and the way the vaccination took place shortly before death, allowed the researchers to say that for three of the cases, the vaccination was the “probable cause” of the myocarditis and that the cardiac condition “was the cause of the sudden death.

In one of the other cases, myocarditis was believed to be the cause of death, but researchers detected a herpes virus, another explanation for the incidence of heart inflammation. The remaining case did not include an alternative explanation for the myocarditis, but the researchers said the impact of inflammation was “discrete and primarily seen in pericardial fat.” They classified both cases as possibly caused by vaccination.

“In general, a causal link between myocarditis and SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is supported by several considerations,” the researchers said, including the “close temporal relationship with vaccination”; the “absence of any other significant pre-existing heart disease”; and testing negative for any “infectious agent causing myocarditis”.

Limitations included the small cohort size.

The study (pdf) was published by Clinical Research in Cardiology on November 27. The researchers all work for the University Hospital of Heidelberg. They were financed by the German authorities.

Moderna and Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment.

The meticulous exclusion of possible causes outside of vaccination indicates that the cases are “the tip of the iceberg,” Dr. Andrew Bostom, a Rhode Island-based heart specialist, told The Epoch Times.

“If there’s a seemingly healthy person who dies suddenly in their sleep, it’s basically the cases that are autopsied, and clearly the most common finding is some form of atherosclerotic coronary heart disease. But they basically have ruled that out in those cases. And then they found the most plausible cause was vaccination,” he said. “And so that suggests that the phenomenon might actually be broader than we suspected. “

Myocarditis

Myocarditis is a serious heart condition that can manifest as chest pain and usually leads the affected person to seek treatment in the hospital.

Doctors generally advise against all or most physical activity for a period of time.

Causes include bacteria, viruses, and fever.

According to the researchers, acute myocarditis clears up in about half of cases within the first two to four weeks, but another quarter present with longer-term problems and most of the rest lead to death or heart transplantation.

The incidence of myocarditis among COVID-19 vaccine recipients was higher than expected, researchers in the United States, Israel and other countries have found. The highest rates were detected in young people, especially young men.

Estimates of typical incidence rates for myocarditis are 0.2 to 2.2 per million people in seven days. Reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System show higher rates for males ages 5-49 and females ages 12-29. The highest rate was 75.9 per million second doses administered. Reports to the system do not prove causation, but the system suffers from severe under-reporting, studies show, indicating rates are even higher.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to recommend vaccination for virtually everyone 6 months of age and older, saying the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks. Some experts disagree, saying side effects such as myocarditis tilt the calculus toward higher risks in certain age groups.

Government officials have repeatedly said that most cases of myocarditis resolve within weeks, but CDC researchers found in September that many young people who suffered post-vaccination myocarditis still had abnormal MRI results. months later.

The incidence was much lower in the elderly, according to US authorities, who have refused to release autopsy results of people who died after vaccination, and various studies.

The new study “suggests we missed severe myo[carditis] cases in our studies,” Dr. Tracy Høeg, an epidemiologist who advises the Florida Department of Health, tweeted.

Causality

Several vaccines have been linked to myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis. They are made by Moderna and Pfizer and are the two most widely administered in the United States and Germany.

Both vaccines use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

Causality means that a vaccine causes a disease.

Top CDC researchers say (pdf) that current evidence shows a causal link between mRNA injections and heart inflammation. Other researchers have also come to this conclusion.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns potential vaccine recipients that “post-marketing data demonstrate increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within 7 days of the second dose.”

Bostom said the evidence he reviewed shows causation.

“It’s also certain that most of the associations we say are confirmed in medicine,” he said.

Some studies have identified COVID-19 as another cause of myocarditis and pericarditis, but others have indicated it may not be associated.

Other autopsy results

Prior to the German study, other researchers around the world had reported results from autopsies of people who died suddenly after vaccination.

In 2021, US researchers reported that two adults developed myocarditis within two weeks of being vaccinated against COVID-19, and they could not find causes other than vaccination.

In 2021, South Korean researchers reported that after reviewing the death of a 22-year-old man who died five days after receiving the Pfizer vaccine, they determined that the primary cause was “myocarditis, causally associated” with vaccine.

In January, New Zealand researchers reported that the Pfizer vaccine was likely responsible for sudden myocarditis that led to the death of a 57-year-old woman, writing that “other causes have been ruled out with reasonable certainty” .

In February, researchers from several US states reported that two teenagers who died shortly after receiving Pfizer’s vaccine had heart inflammation and that inflammation was the leading cause of death.

In May, CDC researchers reported that a young boy had died from post-vaccination heart inflammation, with myocarditis thought to be the cause of death.

In September, a German researcher reported that a 55-year-old man who died four months after receiving the Pfizer vaccine had died of myocarditis and said that “these results indicate that myocarditis, together with subsequent thromboembolic events to the injection of a gene-inducing spike- based vaccines, are causally associated with a[n] detrimental immunological response to the encoded agent.

And just recently, Japanese researchers reported the results of a 27-year-old man who died 28 days after being admitted following vaccination.