Turns out Subclinical Myocarditis is MUCH more common than expected
Another summary post with a few of my own thoughts.
Okay, so I’ve seen some of this guys posts on Twitter and didn’t realize he has a Substack. He’s a cardiologist who has been a realist on vaccine side effects when it comes to cardiology. This is actually a really clear article on this study, but I’ll summarize as well. I think this one is absolutely worth your time to read if you haven’t already.
TL; DR
So what happened was that Thai scientists ran an experiment where they enrolled 314 teenagers from 13-18 with a roughly 2:1 split boys:girls. They lost 13 to follow-up for a total of 301 in the study and 202 of those being male.
They tested them BEFORE vaccination for a baseline and excluded from the test any with abnormal readings prior to the test as well as anyone with a history of cardiac issues. Then they tested them again 3, 7, and 14 days post dose 2 of Pfizer’s shot. (The 14 day test was optional and only for those with cardiac symptoms).
There were two numbers reported - 18% abnormal EKG and 3.5% of boys having other clinical indicators of either myocarditis, pericarditis, or “subclinical” versions of either.
Much hay has been made over the 18% abnormal EKG not really being abnormal in most of the cases for teenagers - this somehow is supposed to discredit the entire study (hint: it doesn’t). It completely ignores the real smoking gun which is that 7/202 males in the study had either clinical or subclinical myocarditis. (5 with troponin levels >2x the threshold value and in one case >40x)
Subclinical myocarditis means elevated cardiac enzymes and potentially issues in the EKG but ones that don’t meet the threshold for diagnosed myocarditis. Basically the question this study was asking was - is it possible that there is more limited cardiac cell damage going on that doesn’t raise to the level of myopericarditis, but is still above the background.
The answer is yes, and at much greater numbers that was suspected before. While I was writing this summary, Anish Koka put out a great FAQ on answers to common questions that I highly suggest you read as well.
What I find most interesting
The study size seemed small to me. However, the authors did think about this and pick their size intentionally.
Aside from pretty much nailing their “lost to follow-up” estimate (study was just over 4% lost) they used a “cardiac manifestation” from a prior study (footnote 17 rather than the 18 listed in the paper). This seems like a surprising metric to use. I would have expected them to use one of the myocarditis estimated rates like the 1/2700 Hong Kong rate. That should have required a lot more study members to be sure of a result.
But it didn't. 301 was enough (and only 202 young men) to detect a case of clinical myocarditis and two cases of pericarditis, not to mention the 4 subclinical cases. While two were less than 2x the threshold, the threshold was set well above “normal” (normal heart damage isn't really a thing). The good news is that even the clinical myocarditis case appears to have resolved without scaring of the heart. While this is undoubtedly better than the alternative, there really isn't a world where “mild heart damage” is an actual thing. The heart has very little capacity to heal itself (this adaptation protects it from most cancers) and so any damage must be seen as nearly irreversible.
It would be inappropriate to say this proves a rate of 0.5% (1/202) but I think we can clearly infer two strong likelihoods 1) The clinical myocarditis rate is much higher than reported and 2) There is undetected cardiac damage going on at even greater rates than that.
Pfizer has been told to run this test as well, but I suspect it is working as hard as possible to get a different result. I'd like to see some replication of this from other sources, it's possible the result is a fluke, but I believe this result pretty much ensures a rate much higher than our highest estimates to date.
And of course, like so many other preprints with negative conclusions related to the vaccines, they said the thing.
I have to again assume this is too bypass gatekeeper because it otherwise makes no sense in the context of the study.
On the non-vaccinated side of the coin, Israel had a massive cohort to study and found no difference in myo/peri-carditis unvaccinated pre vs post-covid infection.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35456309/
Discussed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMMA9bwDklQ