Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Linked to Heart Inflammation Risk in Real-World Study

Zachary Stieber
By Zachary Stieber
August 26, 2021Vaccines
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Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Linked to Heart Inflammation Risk in Real-World Study
A patient receives a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at the outpatient clinics of the Cardiovascular Centre at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 12, 2021. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Real-world data from Israel linked Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to an elevated risk of heart inflammation, researchers said this week.

Israeli scientists found vaccination likely caused myocarditis, or heart inflammation, in one to five people per 100,000 who would not have otherwise suffered the condition.

However, they also said that getting COVID-19 was linked to a much higher risk—with 11 inflammation events out of 100 attributed to the disease, which is caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Most of the heart inflammation cases post-vaccination were in young males. The 21 persons who had myocarditis in the vaccinated group had a median age of 25 years old and 90.9 percent were men.

“We estimated that the BNT162b2 vaccine resulted in an increased incidence of a few adverse events over a 42-day follow-up period. Although most of these events were mild, some of them, such as myocarditis, could be potentially serious,” they said, referring to the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.

“However, our results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 infection is itself a very strong risk factor for myocarditis, and it also substantially increases the risk of multiple other serious adverse events. These findings help to shed light on the short- and medium-term risks of the vaccine and place them in clinical context. Further studies will be needed to estimate the potential of long-term adverse events,” they added.

The research analyzed adverse events reported among 884,828 vaccinated persons and an equal number of people who didn’t get a vaccine, as well as a cohort of over 240,000 people who contracted COVID-19. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday. Dr. Ran Balicer, of the Clalit Health Services in Tel Aviv, led the research group. They were funded by Harvard Medical School and the Clalit Research Institute.

A Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the company is aware of “rare reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, predominantly in male adolescents and young adults, after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.”

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines utilize messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology.

The spokesperson noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes the heart inflammation as a rare side effect.

“Patients have typically rapidly improved with conservative treatment. It is important to note that CDC continues to strongly encourage COVID-19 vaccinations for eligible individuals aged 12 and older. With hundreds of millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine administered globally, the benefit risk profile of our vaccine remains positive,” the spokesperson added.

The Pfizer vaccine has been found in multiple countries to be associated with an increased risk of heart inflammation, including the United States. U.S. health officials added a warning to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in June regarding the higher risk, but have continued recommending them for use, and earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine.

The Pfizer vaccine, as well as shots offered by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, had previously been made available to the public through emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots are currently still under EUA.

Dr. Grace Lee of the Stanford University of Medical School, in an editorial accompanying the new study, highlighted how the risk of myocarditis was higher among COVID-19 patients than the vaccinated.

“What is even more compelling about these data is the substantial protective effect of vaccines with respect to adverse events such as acute kidney injury, intracranial hemorrhage, and anemia, probably because infection was prevented. Furthermore, the persons with SARS-CoV-2 infection appeared to be at substantially higher risk for arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, deep-vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, pericarditis, intracerebral hemorrhage, and thrombocytopenia than those who received the BNT162b2 vaccine,” she wrote.

Not everyone was enthused by the research, though.

Dr. Vinay Prasad said issues in the study included a lack of a one-dose cohort, since Pfizer’s regimen is typically two doses, and not identifying people who recovered from COVID-19 but did not get vaccinated.

“You need to report separately for boys aged 16-24, who face a vastly higher rate of myocarditis, and may not gain much beyond 1 dose,” added Prasad, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, on Twitter.

From The Epoch Times

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