COVID vaccines worsen outcomes after heart attacks in patients with prior infection, study suggests

Global research already suggests the risk of COVID-19 infection rises with each mRNA vaccine dose and a higher risk of heart inflammation in jabbed young people, especially males, who face a low risk from COVID itself.

Now a three-year study of nearly 1,000 heart attack patients at a hospital in Spain, published in a peer-reviewed Elsevier journal this month, suggests vaccination makes them far more likely to have "major adverse cardiovascular events" including death within six months of their heart attacks, especially when they've also recovered from COVID infection.

The Madrid-based researchers found "no significant association," however, between MACE and N-antibodies that result from infection as opposed to vaccination.

"The combination of vaccination and natural SARS-CoV2 infection was associated with the development of severe heart failure and cardiogenic shock in patients with STEMI" – ST-elevation myocardial infarction, or complete artery blockage – "possibly related to an increased serological response" to vaccination, according to the paper in Vaccine.

The March 2020-March 2023 study does not appear to have drawn notice except among doctors, researchers and journalists who have faced suppression for pointing to worrisome connections between COVID vaccines and severe adverse events in low-risk populations such as youth.

"Hybrid exposure causes very high levels of spike antibodies!" MIT professor Retsef Levi, lead author of a 2022 study finding vaccination "significantly associated" with a spike in emergency heart problems in 16-39 year-olds in Israel, wrote on X after reading the Spanish paper.

Two days after Just the News reported on Levi's study, the Nature journal Scientific Reports added a scarlet letter to the paper in response to unspecified "criticisms" of its conclusions. The journal had still not posted its promised "full editorial response" six months later, and finally published the authors' minor corrections to several sections in August 2023.

Twitter, formerly X, similarly dissuaded users from reading a study – deeming the link "unsafe" when they clicked it – by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found Pfizer's vaccine for ages 12-15 can't stop symptomatic infection by four months and turns negative by seven months, making infection more likely.

Four in five patients in the Spanish study were men, with an average age of 64, but U.K. diagnostic pathologist Clare Craig, co-chair of the nonprofit Health Advisory and Recovery Team, emphasized the Madrid-based researchers' findings for vaccinated patients under 65.

Either severe heart failure or cardiogenic shock, formally known as heart-attack categories Killip III/IV, was found in 7.9% of unvaccinated and 13.7% of vaccinated patients within 30 days of heart attack, and in 13.3% of vaccinated more than 30 days before hospital admission. 

The gap was wider between unvaccinated and vaccinated in the previous 30 days under age 65 – 4.8% and 14.3%, respectively – while the proportion (11.8%) was lower in those vaccinated more than 30 days before admission. 

The "significantly higher S-specific IgG levels" were more pronounced among younger patients who were vaccinated and previously infected.

Twitter permanently suspended Craig while Elon Musk was trying to buy the company two years ago, apparently in response to coordinated reports of her "hateful conduct" and "abusive behavior, but switched its tune after she threatened legal action, claiming her account had been caught in a purge of "automated spam accounts."

The vast majority of vaccinated patients in the study received mRNA vaccines – Pfizer (68%) or Moderna (16%) – and the rest "non-replicating viral vector types" (16%). Killip III/IV was more common in those receiving at least one non-mRNA dose (16.9%) than all mRNA (12.5%).

Smoking was the only significant difference in "patient baseline characteristics" between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients, with the latter overrepresented. Their other underlying risk factors – hypertension, unhealthy fat levels, coronary artery disease and diabetes – were similar between groups.

"The paper may help explain why post-Covid death rates remain persistently high in heavily vaccinated countries, belying the predictions of epidemiologists who expected death rates to fall below normal after the epidemic ended," former New York Times drug industry reporter Alex Berenson wrote in his newsletter.

His settlement with Twitter in litigation for banning his account exposed a trove of the social media platform's communications with federal officials. Berenson believes he can meet the Supreme Court's new higher standards for holding the feds accountable for coercing platforms to censor.

MedCram co-founder Roger Scheult, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California Riverside and Loma Linda University, cautioned that the researchers did not find an "absolute risk increase" and the study was a "retrospective single center review." 

He pointed to a 2023 systematic review of "cardiovascular complications" of COVID vaccines in another Elsevier journal, which acknowledged their connection to myocarditis, thrombotic thrombocytopenia and pulmonary embolism, but dismissed these "minor cardiac risks" against the "personal and public health benefits" of COVID vaccines.

The study has been overshadowed by the latest exposed hypocrisy of a public official who imposed severe COVID restrictions and the federal government's continued interest in panicking the public about COVID infections.

Then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's public health adviser, Jay Varma, admitted on undercover video posted by podcaster Steven Crowder that he "had to be kind of sneaky about" hosting private sex parties because "I was running the entire Covid response for the city" and publicly urging New Yorkers to wear masks and socially distance.

He also said he attended an "underground dance party" that was "not COVID-friendly" below a Wall Street bank after leaving his position but still consulting for the city part-time. "I did all this deviant, sexual stuff while I was, you know, like on TV and stuff," Varma said.

Varma took credit in the video for de Blasio's private-sector worker vaccine mandate, which prevented then-Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving from playing home games but not attending them. Echoing former White House COVID adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, Varma said the goal was to make life so difficult for unvaccinated New Yorkers they would give in to the jab.

He didn't deny the authenticity of the video but said his comments had been "spliced, diced and taken out of context" by an "extremist right-wing organization."

Democratic City Councilman Robert Holden called on Mayor Eric Adams to investigate Varma's actions and drop the city's appeals in lawsuits by public workers who were fired for refusing COVID vaccination, The New York Times reported.

Americans can get up to four free at-home COVID tests in the mail under a federal program reboot, the feds announced this week. The Food and Drug Administration says it starts in "late September" but the U.S. Postal Service page on which users sign up says it hasn't started.

Government orders are sustaining the market for the tests, health policy consultant Amy Kelbick told public radio program "Marketplace."

"It's hard to want to invest in the manufacturing of that device" when demand is so low and insurance stops covering testing, she also said. "It really is the federal government that is most likely the biggest customer for a lot of these testing manufacturers."