Community COVID-19 Respiratory Illness is Not Associated with Myopericarditis
Cannot Shift Blame Away from COVID-19 Vaccination
by Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
The public has been confused with messaging from academia concerning myocarditis. During 2020 there was a focus on heart inflammation with the respiratory illness with large studies attempting to “find” cases. For example, the Big Ten college athletic league had an exhaustive program offered to >9600 students measuring cardiac troponin, and doing additional studies including MRI in the 30% of athletes who contracted the respiratory illness.[i] After finding just a handful of suspected cases in thousands of studies and no hospitalizations and deaths, the program closed just before the students were encouraged and some later mandated undergo COVID-19 vaccination which has an FDA warning indicating the vaccines cause myocarditis. It was a tragedy to close a costly screening program just before the REAL CAUSE of myocarditis was introduced into the colleges. Joy et al performed a detailed prospective cohort study with troponin and multimodality cardiac imaging in healthcare workers who contracted COVID-19 and no evidence of heart damage was found.[ii] Yet, messaging persisted in the medical community that “COVID-19 causes more myocarditis than the vaccines.”[iii] This was based on flawed inpatient studies of acute severe COVID-19 where troponin levels are commonly elevated due to critical illness without adjudicated myocarditis. This is very different from healthy individuals who take a vaccine and then develop chest pain, effort intolerance, ECG changes, dramatic troponin elevations, and have confirmation by MRI. Community studies such as a recent one by Tuvali et al from Israel are far more likely to find a “signal” if it exists in the time period before vaccines were introduced.[iv] As you can see, there was no increase in myocarditis above the very low baseline rate of those without COVID-19 in Israel.
This is reassuring since we can focus on COVID-19 vaccination as the likely determinant of myocarditis and pericarditis in 2021 and beyond. For a wonderful teaching video regarding this paper see the YouTube by the venerable Professor John Campbell. Tuvali et al, reviewed by Professor John Cambell So the next time a young person is seeking medical clearance to participate in sports, be sure to mention COVID-19 vaccination as part of the medical history and to prompt the doctor to evaluate, if warranted, any signs of heart damage that may have occurred.
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[i] Daniels CJ, Rajpal S, Greenshields JT, Rosenthal GL, Chung EH, Terrin M, Jeudy J, Mattson SE, Law IH, Borchers J, Kovacs R, Kovan J, Rifat SF, Albrecht J, Bento AI, Albers L, Bernhardt D, Day C, Hecht S, Hipskind A, Mjaanes J, Olson D, Rooks YL, Somers EC, Tong MS, Wisinski J, Womack J, Esopenko C, Kratochvil CJ, Rink LD; Big Ten COVID-19 Cardiac Registry Investigators. Prevalence of Clinical and Subclinical Myocarditis in Competitive Athletes With Recent SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Results From the Big Ten COVID-19 Cardiac Registry. JAMA Cardiol. 2021 Sep 1;6(9):1078-1087. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2021.2065. PMID: 34042947; PMCID: PMC8160916.
[ii] Joy G, Artico J, Kurdi H, Seraphim A, Lau C, Thornton GD, Oliveira MF, Adam RD, Aziminia N, Menacho K, Chacko L, Brown JT, Patel RK, Shiwani H, Bhuva A, Augusto JB, Andiapen M, McKnight A, Noursadeghi M, Pierce I, Evain T, Captur G, Davies RH, Greenwood JP, Fontana M, Kellman P, Schelbert EB, Treibel TA, Manisty C, Moon JC; COVIDsortium Investigators. Prospective Case-Control Study of Cardiovascular Abnormalities 6 Months Following Mild COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2021 Nov;14(11):2155-2166. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmg.2021.04.011. Epub 2021 May 8. PMID: 33975819; PMCID: PMC8105493.
[iii] Singer ME, Taub IB, Kaelber DC. Risk of Myocarditis from COVID-19 Infection in People Under Age 20: A Population-Based Analysis. medRxiv [Preprint]. 2022 Mar 21:2021.07.23.21260998. doi: 10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998. PMID: 34341797; PMCID: PMC8328065.
I'm burning out trying to send out information and trying to wake people up. I can't even think of the words for people who are afraid to take Ivermectin and vitamins but will repeatedly inject themselves with experimental mRNA - I'm on the verge of just moving on with my life content with the knowledge that my immediate family and my close friends get it and have treated themselves accordingly - as a close friend has said - you can't save them.
This is an enormous hurtle - to get people to switch understanding and the worst way to learn is by being harmed or witnessing. Thanks for a great article with citations!