Fact Checking Claims About COVID-19 Vaccines and Myocarditis
A doctor claims the vaccines have caused an uptick in the heart condition.
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.
Data reported to VAERS is both unverified and unvetted. A disclaimer on the VAERS website reads: “VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The report may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.”
According to Nordlund, “as of April 1, there are about 2600 cases of myocarditis post COVID-19 vaccination submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
“Most cases have been reported after receiving Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, (mRNA COVID-19 vaccines) particularly in male adolescents and young adults,” Nordlund added. “Through follow-up, including medical record reviews, CDC and FDA have verified 1,407 reports of myocarditis or pericarditis.”
To put these numbers into context, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, as of March 30, 2022, 7.7 million adolescents ages 12-17 received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 14.5 million adolescents received two doses of the vaccine.
(McCullough did not respond to our request for comment.)
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.
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
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.