Kim Dacey
News Reporter
One doctor said heart inflammation can be caused by certain vaccines — the smallpox vaccine was known to cause it. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether the mRNA COVID-19 shots do as well.
“They haven’t definitively made a causal link. What they’ve seen now is an association that seems to be getting a little bit stronger evidence,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Stronger evidence that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, could be causing myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle or pericarditis, inflammation of the lining of the heart, especially in males aged 16-24.
“Probably due to the inflammation that occurs when you get the vaccine the immune reaction may not only generate antibodies and T cells against COVID-19 but may also generate some reaction against parts of the heart muscle that’s likely what the hypothesis is and this is something that needs to be worked out,” Adalja said.
The CDC is looking into 475 cases in people under the age of 30 since April. As of May 31, 270 were hospitalized and released, 15 were still hospitalized and three patients were in the ICU. Not all have yet been linked to the vaccines, and the vast majority are considered mild cases.
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