Boys and young men ages 12 to 24 have an increased risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) after COVID-19 vaccination, CDC data has found. However, according to CDC data, cases are rare, relatively mild and almost always resolve. In a COVID-19 safety data presentation in June, CDC staff scientists reported that its massive vaccine safety surveillance system indicated that in males 12-24, there were 27 myocarditis cases per million doses of COVID-19 vaccine (about one case in 37,000 doses). Of the cases identified during 2021, 83 percent recovered within three months, while more than 90 percent recovered within the year. Surveillance data found no cases of death from heart transplant or COVID-19 vaccination.
While anti-vaccine activists have lamented this modest risk from vaccination, health experts say the risk of myocarditis and other inflammatory conditions from COVID-19 infection far outweighs the risk from vaccination. Exact estimates vary, but a CDC study in 2021 found that people with COVID-19 infection had a 16 times higher risk of myocarditis than people without the infection. Specifically, the study estimated that there were 150 myocarditis cases per 100,000 COVID-19-infected patients, while there were only nine myocarditis cases per 100,000 people without COVID-19 infection and who were also not vaccinated. As has been seen with vaccination, the study found that young men were at the highest risk of myocarditis.
Kennedy aides attack COVID-19 shots
Kennedy and his colleagues like Milhoan have consistently raised the risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccinations, with some claiming without evidence that they have caused sudden cardiac arrest and deaths in young men, though studies have found no such link. In 2022, Milhoan and fellow ACIP member and conspiracy theorist Robert Malone were featured in a viral social media post reporting that 50 percent of college athletes in the Big Ten Athletic Conference had myocarditis linked to COVID-19 vaccines, which could lead to death if played. But both were referencing a JAMA Cardiology study that examined subclinical myocarditis in Big Ten athletes after COVID-19. Infection-No vaccination. In fact, researchers confirmed to AFP Fact Check that no athletes in the study were vaccinated. And the rate of subclinical myocarditis in the group was not 50 percent but 2.3 percent.
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