Does BMJ accept COVID-19 vaccine benefits do not now outweigh the (myocarditis) risks?

How the turn tables… There definitely seems to be something in the water. Firstly, the mainstream media and our experts continue to downplay the risk of myocarditis caused by the COVID-19 vaccines. For example, NBC News reports that myocarditis “following Covid vaccination is very rare”, even as they admit that most cases “are in male teens and young adults”. Source. And the CDC “continues to recommend that everyone ages 6 months and older get vaccinated for COVID-19”, as the benefits “far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis”. Source.

Just a few weeks ago we reported on a South Korean study indicating a jab induced myocarditis incidence rate of around 1 in 100,000 (and around 1 in 19,000 for “males between the ages of 12 and 17 years”), with a good chunk of them dying soon after. This aligns well with the American Heart Association late last year noticing that the “risk of developing myocarditis among males ages 16-19 after a third dose was about 1 in 15,000”. Source. We note that figures like these do not compare favourably with numbers needed to be vaccinated to prevent a severe COVID-19 hospitalisation now being in the hundreds of thousands for the young and healthy. Now, a new study (Alami et al.) published by BMJ, one of the world’s biggest publishers of medical journals, states that their “meta-analysis indicates that within 30-day follow-up period, vaccinated individuals were twice as likely to develop myo/pericarditis in the absence of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to unvaccinated individuals, with a rate ratio of 2.05 (95% CI 1.49–2.82)”. Source.

Okay then.

Secondly, there’s a little more to this story. A cheeky but affable medical researcher, whose years of university training allow him to recognise when one number is much bigger or smaller than another number, found that the myocarditis risk *alone* refuted the ‘benefits outweigh the risks’ claim, at least for certain groups at the present time; crafting a ‘rapid response’. Despite the potential implications to the mainstream narratives around the jabs, BMJ accepted. Source. As it is quite small, we reproduce it in its entirety here.

Risks outweigh the benefits? Myocarditis risk alone appears to exceed the COVID-19 vaccines’ benefits.

Raphael Lataster, Researcher The University of Sydney

The striking findings by Alami et al., published in The BMJ, that their “meta-analysis indicates that within 30-day follow-up period, vaccinated individuals were twice as likely to develop myo/pericarditis in the absence of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to unvaccinated individuals, with a rate ratio of 2.05 (95% CI 1.49–2.82)” adds to the recent spate of evidence on the not-so-insignificant risk of COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis.1 For example, Cho et al., publishing in the European Heart Journal, found a COVID vaccine-induced myocarditis incidence rate of around 1 in 100,000, and around 1 in 19,000 for males between the ages of 12 and 17 years; also finding that a significant number of vaccine-induced myocarditis sufferers (around 5%) end up dying soon afterwards.2

Contrast this with the UK government’s determination of numbers needed to vaccinate to prevent a severe COVID hospitalisation being in the hundreds of thousands for young ‘no risk’ groups.3 It would appear to be an unacceptable risk, at least for certain groups, for this one adverse effect alone. The risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis may indeed be very small, but the risk of serious COVID in the young and healthy is smaller still.

There are also increasing questions over the vaccines’ effectiveness, such as those concerning statistical biases in observational studies raised in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice by Fung, Jones, and Doshi;4 and by myself.5 Should we now admit that, at least at this point in time, the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines do not outweigh the risks?

References
1. Alami A, Krewski D, Farhat N, et al. Risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in mRNA COVID-19-vaccinated and unvaccinated populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open. 2023;13:e065687. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/6/e065687.
2. Cho JY, Kim KH, Lee N, et al. COVID-19 vaccination-related myocarditis: a Korean nationwide study. European Heart Journal. 2023;44: 2234-43. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehad339.
3. Department of Health & Social Care. Appendix 1: estimation of number needed to vaccinate to prevent a COVID-19 hospitalisation for primary vaccination, booster vaccination (3rd dose), autumn 2022 and spring 2023 booster for those newly in a risk group. 2023. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa....
4. Fung K, Jones M, Doshi P. Sources of bias in observational studies of covid-19 vaccine effectiveness. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. 2023;1-7. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13839.
5. Lataster R. Reply to Fung et al. on COVID-19 vaccine case-counting window biases overstating vaccine effectiveness. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. 2023;1-4. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13892.

Okay then.

Extra: Yes, the cheeky monkey is me. And this ended up being accepted just a day after my first proper journal article on COVID was published. Something this important should no doubt be the basis of its own article, and more are indeed planned.