The Deadly Side Effect of COVID-19 Vaccines: Heart Inflammation
COVID-19 vaccines have been hailed as a lifesaving tool in the fight against the pandemic. Millions of people around the world have received them and most have experienced only mild or moderate side effects. However, a new study has revealed a shocking and tragic outcome for some vaccine recipients: death from heart inflammation.
The study, published in the preprint server medRxiv, is the first systematic review of all the published autopsy reports involving COVID-19 vaccination-related heart inflammation, also known as myocarditis. The researchers searched for all the autopsy studies that included COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis as a possible cause of death until July 3rd, 2023. They found 14 papers, with 28 autopsy cases.
The researchers then asked three independent experts in heart pathology to determine if the vaccination caused the death in each case. They used the Bradford Hill criteria, a set of principles for establishing causal relationships in epidemiology. They also considered the temporal relationship, the internal and external consistency, the pathobiological mechanisms, and the overall epidemiology of vaccine myocarditis.
They concluded that all 28 deaths were causally linked to COVID-19 vaccination by independent adjudication. The deceased ranged from 16 to 86 years old, and most were male. They had received different types of COVID-19 vaccines, including mRNA and adenovirus-based ones. The time between the last vaccination and death varied from one day to 42 days.
Most of the cases had symptoms consistent with myocarditis before death, such as chest pain and difficulty breathing. However, some cases had no reported symptoms before death and died suddenly and unexpectedly. For example, two boys, age 16 and 17, died a few days after mRNA injection while sleeping at home. Autopsies revealed patchy inflammation in their hearts, suggesting that they had sudden arrhythmic death due to myocarditis.
The researchers explained that COVID-19 vaccines can trigger an immune response that can damage the heart tissue and cause inflammation. This can lead to impaired heart function and abnormal heart rhythms that can be fatal. They also noted that two cases had myocarditis as a consequence of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), a rare but serious condition that can affect children and young adults after COVID-19 infection or vaccination.
The researchers stressed that their findings are not meant to discourage people from getting vaccinated, but to raise awareness and alertness among health professionals and the public. They called for urgent investigation to identify the risk factors and preventive measures for fatal COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis. They also urged for more autopsy studies to confirm and monitor this rare but serious adverse event.
They concluded: “We believe that our findings are important for public health as they highlight a potential causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and death from suspected myocarditis, in cases where sudden, unexpected death has occurred in a vaccinated person.”