Fact Checking Claims About COVID-19 Vaccines and Myocarditis

A doctor claims the vaccines have caused an uptick in the heart condition.

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A viral Facebook post overstates the risk of myocarditis from the COVID-19 vaccines. The post shares a quote from Dr. Peter McCullough, a Texas cardiologist and frequent purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation, who claims that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has verified “21,000 cases of myocarditis and climbing” from the COVID-19 vaccine. 

McCullough first made the claim during a January 24 panel discussion, hosted by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. The senator had invited a group of doctors and scientists—who have all been criticized for spreading COVID-19 misinformation—to offer “a second opinion” on the pandemic response. It was during this panel that McCullough spoke about the “21,000 cases of myocarditis” from the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis is the inflammation of the outer lining of the heart muscle. Although there have been some reported cases of myocarditis following the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, cases occur infrequently. “Myocarditis and pericarditis after COVID-19 vaccination are rare,” CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in an email to The Dispatch Fact Check. 

Nordlund also noted that according to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event System (VAERS), a system managed by the CDC and the Federal Drug Administration through which members of the public can report potential side effects of vaccines, the number of reported cases of myocarditis or pericarditis is significantly lower than 21,000. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Phil253

    You should also check a major new study out of FInland, Sweden and Norway. A snap shot - "Data from the study, published in a peer-reviewed journal called JAMA Cardiology, show that giving 1 million men aged 16-24 two doses of Moderna’s vaccine would lead to almost 300 hospitalizations for myocarditis and a related illness called pericarditis. Most would come after the second dose. Using Pfizer’s shot instead would lead to about 100 hospitalizations". Lastly, Alex Berenson is not happy with you guys, especially Virginia Hume. Clearly she read Pandemia for her recent article on the COVID response.

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    Ben Connelly

    The sad thing about this kind of lie is it will make the real claims of much smaller numbers of cases of myocardiasis seem like misinformation to some people. There really is a risk, and it’s small, but if you’re 20 the risk of COVID is small. The EU has banned the Moderna vaccine for males under 30 for this reason.

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  3. Larry Weiner

    Should be **17.1** million w/1 dose, 14.7 million with two doses.
    From the AAP link above (as of 4/13/2022):

    "17.1 million US children and adolescents ages 12- 17 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, Representing 68% of 12-17 year-olds
    14.6 million of US children and adolescents ages 12- 17 completed the 2-dose vaccination series, Representing 58% of 12-17 year-olds"

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  4. Michelle C

    Your fact check is incomplete. Please do a service to young males and update it. Most of your fact-checking involves looking at CDC data, which has proven to be inaccurate over the past 2 years.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0.pdf

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  5. Raincheck

    I’m sure there was also myocarditis among the unvaccinated.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      That's missing from the article. Is the rate the same, lower or higher when it comes to the vaccine, and if higher, is the level relevant or not? That's a statistical question.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Seems the like doctor inflated his claims quite a bit. As in a 'boatload full of inflated claims"...

    “Through follow-up, including medical record reviews, CDC and FDA have verified 1,407 reports of myocarditis or pericarditis.” It would be useful to contextualize that number differently. First, how many annual cases of those two diagnoses have been made not related to the vaccines? If the number of diagnoses is substantially higher than that, this this lessens in impact. Second, through the end of December 2021 there were less than 6,200 deaths under the age of 30. Any sense of the number of deaths attributed to those two diagnoses outside of Covid? Having that additional information would improve the understanding of the issues involved.

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