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Politifact Fact Checks Dr. Peter McCulloagh : Teens are “more likely to be hospitalized with myocarditis” from the COVID-19 vaccines than to be “hospitalized with COVID.”
Politifact ^ | 12/23/2021 | Jeff Cercone

Posted on 01/03/2022 8:10:22 AM PST by SeekAndFind

If Your Time is short

A Texas cardiologist recently made a claim about the risk of myocarditis in teens from the COVID-19 vaccine, citing a study that health experts raised doubts about in September. He also floated a debunked claim that 45,000 Americans have died from the vaccine.

Dr. Peter McCullough made the claims in an appearance on the "DarkHorse Podcast; an article about his appearance, from the website Conservative Fighters, carried the headline: "Top cardiologist: Study shows COVID vaccines are more dangerous than covid itself."

"The most shocking thing in the Hoag analysis was that a child ages 12-17 is more likely to be hospitalized with myocarditis than taking your chances with COVID and ever getting hospitalized with COVID," McCullough claimed.

The claim is not accurate. Public health experts say the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the risks for teens.

McCullough was referring to a study by Dr. Tracy Hoag and others posted to MedRxiv, a site where researchers post preliminary versions of scientific papers before they are peer reviewed. PolitiFact found that several doctors and researchers pointed out flaws in that study’s methodology.

McCullough, president of the Cardio Renal Society of America and editor of the journal Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine, is a frequent Fox News guest and has a talk radio show called "The McCullough Report" on the America Out Loud network. His biography on the network’s website says he is "among the world’s experts" on the virus.

However, McCullough has made several claims during the pandemic that have been debunked by fact-checkers, such as that healthy people under 50 don’t need the COVID-19 vaccine and that vaccines offered no protection against the delta variant.

Baylor Scott & White Health, the large Texas-based health system, cut ties with McCullough in February and got a temporary restraining order against him in September, accusing him of continuing to claim an affiliation with it in media interviews, a claim he denied, according to Medscape.

The risk of myocarditis is not greater than COVID-19 risk

McCullough’s claim that teens are more at risk from the vaccine due to myocarditis is not accurate. Health officials acknowledge there is a risk of the heart disorder but say it’s rare and that cases are generally mild.

Hospitalizations of teens due to COVID-19 infection remain low, compared with other age groups, CDC data shows, but the risk of illness or death due to the virus is greater than the risk from myocarditis, health experts say.

Martha Sharan, a spokesperson for the CDC, said that cases of myocarditis after the COVID-19 vaccine are still being investigated.

"It shares some features with typical viral myocarditis in terms of the age and sex distribution, the presenting symptom of chest pain, and various lab values. However, myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccine has less occurrence of heart failure and has a milder acute clinical course," Sharan said.

She added that "short-term outcomes of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccine are much better than those of typical viral myocarditis," and that studies of the long-term outcomes are continuing.

When the vaccines first started coming out, doctors were seeing a small number of males in the 15-to-24 age group with symptoms of myocarditis, including chest pain, low-grade fever, and some changes in MRIs and EKGs, said Dr. Stuart Berger, chief of cardiology in the Department of Pediatrics at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

"These were kids that got symptoms resolved over a very short period of time, probably 24 to 48 hours, so went home and were fine," Berger said.

Berger added that "the incidence of that was much, much, much smaller than myocarditis in the general population that is not related to COVID."

Berger said people, even children, are at much higher risk of getting sick or dying from COVID-19 itself or from Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, which has been reported in many children who have had COVID-19.

His recommendation to his patients? Get the vaccine.

Featured Fact-check



TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: cdcfactchecking; factcheck; myocarditis; teens; vaccine; vaccines
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To: SeekAndFind

SeekAndFind wrote: “The thing is, many assertions made now can only be revealed by TIME. With Operation Warp Speed and the world wide emergency caused by Covid-19, we did not have the standard time to evaluate the vaccines thoroughly, so long term effects, say, in 5 years, cannot be observed now.”

The ‘long term effects’ is just another excuse to avoid taking the vaccines. Ten years from now, the anti-vaxxers would be saying we need another ten years.
BTW, the ‘long term effects’ argument is as old as the hills. This argument is a routine argument against vaccines.
It’s time to admit that this isn’t an argument against this vaccine/illness, it’s déjà vu, all over again.
Please research ‘opposition to vaccines’. The arguments you’re hearing today were made in the past.

That tells me that this is really an argument about vaccination in general. BTW, it is estimated that: “In the absence of a vaccination program, there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.”

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2021/dec/us-covid-19-vaccination-program-one-year-how-many-deaths-and

And, yes, I would mandate the vaccines for all school children whose age group has been approved by the FDA. Reason: they’re safe and effective and children are vulnerable too.

I’m sure I’ll be inundated by the ‘no, they’re not safe’ and ‘no, they’re not effective’, etc., etc.


61 posted on 01/03/2022 12:00:58 PM PST by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
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To: Wayne07

I am more than skeptical of CDC data, since it seems to contradict other first world nations, while the US is behaving like a banana republic. And why the push for an experimental “vaccine” anyway? Therapeutics were ignored, while a vaccine was pushed during a pandemic, and that you just don’t do. Anyway, I am naturally immune. But that doesn’t seem to count, as the push is for a vaccine passport that will be, and in some countries already is, required to buy and sell and even have access your bank account. What do you make of all that?


62 posted on 01/03/2022 12:01:26 PM PST by D Rider ( )
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To: D Rider
no real information to dispute Dr. McCullough.

"Another CDC report narrows the data to males ages 12 through 17 and shows that for every 1 million vaccine doses, there were between 56 and 69 reports of myocarditis. However, it calculated that the COVID-19 vaccines prevented 5,700 cases, 215 hospitalizations, 71 ICU admissions and two deaths."


63 posted on 01/03/2022 12:02:50 PM PST by mac_truck (aide toi et dieu t'aidera )
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To: deport

Mine weren’t quite as hairy, but they were polyp shaped like that head. They took pictures of them and gave me the pictures.

I was thinking about putting them in a brag book to show while others were showing pics of their grandkids. Heh


64 posted on 01/03/2022 12:06:38 PM PST by dforest (Freaking insane world. )
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To: D Rider
The factcheck also posts data from Denmark which is in the same ballpark as the CDC study.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and myocarditis or myopericarditis: population based cohort study

People are overreacting to the risk of COVID, but they are even more dramatically overreacting to the risk of the vaccine. Western Europe is one of the last places I'd look to for advice on risk.

Therapeutics haven't been ignored (A great new anti-viral is just approved), but they have been deemphasized because the medical establishment thinks fewer people will get vaccinated if they think they can just take the therapy. That's a bad messaging strategy, and ends up feeding the anti-vax frenzy.

65 posted on 01/03/2022 12:13:08 PM PST by Wayne07
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To: Grampa Dave; ClearCase_guy
When I hear "dark age" in this context, I always think of that man (Winston Churchill) who saw the threat to freedom long before others did, and what he spoke of in his "Finest Hour" speech:

"...But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

When he said "the lights of perverted science" I think of Big Tech, and its fascistic fusion with malignant government. East Germany in the Cold War, on steroids.

66 posted on 01/03/2022 12:13:25 PM PST by rlmorel (Nothing can foster principles of freedom more effectively than the imposition of tyranny.)
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To: Wayne07

Like I said, until now, the one thing you never do is start a vaccination program during a pandemic.


67 posted on 01/03/2022 12:17:16 PM PST by D Rider ( )
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To: DugwayDuke

RE: The ‘long term effects’ is just another excuse to avoid taking the vaccines. Ten years from now, the anti-vaxxers would be saying we need another ten years.

Nope. Even Robert Malone, who is NOT an anti-vaxxer or Peter McCullough who is also NOT an anti-vaxxer said that 5 years is the minimum it will take to determine if vaccines are safe and ready for mass use.

There is a difference between those who are stubbornly against ANY kind of vaccine and those who want vaccines to go through the standard period of testing before mass deployment.


68 posted on 01/03/2022 12:22:42 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: DugwayDuke

RE: In the absence of a vaccination program, there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.

And this estimation is based on what model? Why is this a trustworthy model?

Did this model ever consider esrly therapeutics that are available and have been used successfully in many countries?


69 posted on 01/03/2022 12:25:49 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

SeekAndFind wrote: “Nope. Even Robert Malone, who is NOT an anti-vaxxer or Peter McCullough who is also NOT an anti-vaxxer said that 5 years is the minimum it will take to determine if vaccines are safe and ready for mass use.”

They can claim they’re not anti-vaxxer but their actions say otherwise. Besides, the vaccines are saving over 1 million per year. Waiting five years is another 5 million deaths.


70 posted on 01/03/2022 12:29:51 PM PST by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
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To: SeekAndFind

SeekAndFind wrote: “And this estimation is based on what model? Why is this a trustworthy model?”

I provided a link.


71 posted on 01/03/2022 12:30:54 PM PST by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
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To: DugwayDuke

RE: I’m sure I’ll be inundated by the ‘no, they’re not safe’ and ‘no, they’re not effective’, etc., etc.

Yes, you will be inundated and should be simply because you have yet to show that vaccinated people actually stop transmission of the virus, not only for adults, but for children.

If vaccinations really prevent contagion, countries like Israel would alreadt be close to normal right now instead of scrambling to mabdate the fourth booster shot.

In other words, your underlying assumption behind FORCING vaccinations on everyone is not supported by real world evidence.

And you have yet to show that children are in more danger of dying from Covid compared to the flu.

And your cavalier attitude towards possible long term effects of the vaccines, something you and I do not know, does not support the FORCING and COERCION of putting a foreign substance into people’s bodies against their choice.

The policy you support are totalitarian and dictatorial. I can’t find a milder word for it.


72 posted on 01/03/2022 12:34:53 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: DugwayDuke

RE: I provided a link.

I had a quick look at the link. The estimates are not much different from the British models whose estimates were far off the mark.

As uspected, their estimates assume that people would not change their lifestyle or even look for effective therapeutics and that there would be no effective alternatives other than vaccination.


73 posted on 01/03/2022 12:39:33 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: DugwayDuke

RE: They can claim they’re not anti-vaxxer but their actions say otherwise.

NOPE. As an example, Dr. Malone himself said he took a chance at being vaccinated, not for any good reason, but because he would not be able to travel and lecture without it.

Heck, Dr. Malone has been working most if his research career at producing safe, useable vaccines.

Dr. McCullough is on record as looking favorably at other types of vaccines like the protein subunit types.

Their actions and words DO NOT show that they are anti-vaxx.


74 posted on 01/03/2022 12:43:52 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: Grampa Dave

Best regards, an health and happiness.


75 posted on 01/03/2022 1:10:33 PM PST by Worldtraveler once upon a time
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To: SeekAndFind

SeekAndFind wrote: “Their actions and words DO NOT show that they are anti-vaxx.”

Of course they do. The old ‘I’m not against all vaccines, just this vaccine’ is nothing but a rhetorical maneuver.


76 posted on 01/03/2022 1:53:04 PM PST by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
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To: SeekAndFind

SeekAndFind wrote: “As suspected, their estimates assume that people would not change their lifestyle or even look for effective therapeutics and that there would be no effective alternatives other than vaccination.”

No ‘effective therapeutics’ is a fairly sound assumption considering that there were none for the period of this estimate. Changed behaviors? Like what?


77 posted on 01/03/2022 1:55:42 PM PST by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
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To: DugwayDuke

You have taken your chances. I won’t take those chances. There are more deaths from the vaxxine than from all previous vaccines previously. Then there are the permanent disabilities which also abound but are not counted. The vaxxines have killed more people in the USA than the COVID has. If you believe in Government Scientism, I suppose you are all in for everyone getting the Gates Depopulation treatment.


78 posted on 01/03/2022 2:01:17 PM PST by arthurus ( covfefe oo)
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To: SeekAndFind

SeekAndFind wrote: “The policy you support are totalitarian and dictatorial. I can’t find a milder word for it.”

I can think of several other words like it’s simply the best path forward based upon current medical best practices.

SeekAndFind wrote: “And your cavalier attitude towards possible long term effects of the vaccines, something you and I do not know, does not support the FORCING and COERCION of putting a foreign substance into people’s bodies against their choice.”

That’s the same argument used against pretty much every vaccine ever developed. Medical history shows that forced vaccination is sometimes necessary. No one has the right to inflict their beliefs, ie, ‘it’s my body, etc., etc.’ and infect others when there are safe and effective vaccines available to prevent contagion. USSC and Constitutional precedents are on my side.


79 posted on 01/03/2022 2:05:52 PM PST by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
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To: DugwayDuke

RE: No ‘effective therapeutics’ is a fairly sound assumption considering that there were none for the period of this estimate. Changed behavi0rs? Like what?

DISAGREE. That there are no effective therapeutics IS the assumption and in fact takes a huge amount of denial of existing evidence from highly credentialed doctors treating patients worldwide.

The one big flaw in our Covid policy is no effective guidance for early treatment at the outset of symptoms.

That model you presented statically assumes that the policies remain as they are. It also ignores the effectiveness of naturally acquired immunity, which it doesn’t even take seriously into account.


80 posted on 01/03/2022 2:07:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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