KILL SHOT: Recent Peer-Reviewed Report Finds 1 in 35 People Who Took Moderna COVID Shot Had Signs of Heart Damage

As with all antivax fearmongering articles, I noticed that no information or links were provided to the original research article. No link, no author names, no title of the article. Lacking this information, it took me about an hour to find the original article. But here is the link followed by the full citation:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejhf.2978

Buergin, N. et al. (2023), Sex-specific differences in myocardial injury incidence after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 Booster Vaccination. Eur J Heart Fail. Accepted Author Manuscript. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejhf.2978

The reason that antivax fearmongers refuse to provide links to the original articles that they claim show some dire consequences to taking vaccines is that the original articles rarely support their pronouncements of imminent death or grave consequence from taking a vaccine.

One thing to remember is that the immune response following vaccination is the same as the immune response to the infection, except that it is comparatively smaller (because a limited quantity of antigen is present following vaccination versus a large quantity of multiple antigens during an infection).

Now, about the actual study. This is a pre-print version which has been peer-reviewed but may still have typos and formatting errors. The researchers were measuring serum levels of cardiac troponin T (CTT). This is considered a marker of cardiac injury. However, increases of CTT can occur for reasons other than cardiac injury. Elevation of CTT is an indication that further investigation into actual cardiac injury is warranted. When they further investigated the 22 people (out of 777 enrolled in the study) who had transiently elevated CTT levels, they found NO definitive cases of myocarditis. There were also NO cases of major adverse cardiac events in the month following vaccination. In other words, the transient up-regulation of CTT was NOT indicative of cardiac damage. I think it occurred because the immune response in some people to some viral antigens causes inflammation which can result in up-regulation of CTT, regardless of whether the antigens are contained in a vaccine or an active virus.

The authors of the study had this to say:
“It is mandatory to put our findings into perspective with the incidence and extent of myocardial injury associated with COVID-19 infection. Before the COVID-19 vaccine were available, the incidence and extent of myocardial injury associated with COVID-19 infection was much higher than observed in this active surveillance study after booster vaccination.37,41,42”

References provided by the study authors:
37. Task Force for the management of COVID-19 of the European Society of Cardiology. European Society of Cardiology guidance for the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease during the COVID-19 pandemic: part 1-epidemiology, pathophysiology, and diagnosis. Eur Heart J 2022;43:1033-1058. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehab696

41. Mueller C, Giannitsis E, Jaffe AS, Huber K, Mair J, Cullen L, Hammarsten O, Mills NL, Möckel M, Krychtiuk K, Thygesen K, Lindahl B. Cardiovascular biomarkers in patients with COVID-19. Eur Heart J Acute Cardiovasc Care 2021;10:310-319. doi: 10.1093/ehjacc/zuab009

42. Sandoval Y, Januzzi JL, Jaffe AS. Cardiac Troponin for Assessment of Myocardial Injury in COVID-19: JACC Review Topic of the Week. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2020;76:1244-1258. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2020.06.068

Whenever someone is proclaiming the dangers of vaccines and using vague mentions of scientific studies that they claim prove the dangers, be suspicious. They don’t want anyone to read the actual studies because they almost certainly do not show what the professional antivaxxers claim they show.

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