Vaccine-induced heart damage is a real risk for young males

As has been long established, myocarditis is the most documented adverse reaction from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. A number of studies have established the risk of myocarditis as highly stratified by age and gender. A study from Israel found that males aged 16 to 29 faced the greatest risk, with around 11 in 100,000 males developing post-vaccination myocarditis. A pre-print study last year comparing risks of infection versus vaccination found that boys aged 12 to 15 were four to six times more likely to develop myocarditis from the vaccine than become hospitalized with any Covid-related condition (in the broadest possible sense, including incidental cases—meaning the relative myocarditis risk is likely understated).

The specific point of causality has not been identified by scientists yet, as the vaccines are experimental by nature and their long-term implications are not fully understood. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal compiles the leading hypotheses for what is causing this adverse event. One newly emerging theory relates to the way the vaccine is injected into the body:

“The shots are supposed to be injected into the shoulder muscle, also known as the deltoid muscle. If the injection accidentally reaches a vein, it could lead to delivery of some of the vaccine to the heart through blood vessels.”

As for the gender-specific risk, some scientists speculate it is due to higher testosterone levels in men:

“That myocarditis appears to happen more among younger males after vaccination than in other age and sex groups suggests a link to the hormone testosterone, which is usually at high levels in younger males, according to researchers. Testosterone may heighten an inflammatory immune response, Dr. Bozkurt said, leading to myocarditis in some male adolescents and young men.”

The consistently identified risk in young males across different countries, medical journals, and research institutes warrant serious caution and re-evaluation of fully vaccinating healthy young males—given their extremely low risk of serious illness or death from Covid. Public health officials in Norway, the UK, and Hong Kong have acted with commendable prudence, offering only one dose of the vaccine to young people since myocarditis cases are clustered after the second dose. Other countries such as Finland, France, and Germany have advised against administration of the Moderna vaccine in males under the age of 30 because of higher rates of myocarditis compared to the Pfizer vaccine.

However, both Canada and the United States have adopted a one-size-fits-all policy, making no medically tailored recommendations for teenagers and young adults.

As a 20-year-old healthy male myself, who has suffered from minor heart complications in early adolescence (irregular heart palpitations), I have decided not to take the vaccine. As a result of my personal health decision informed by my physician, my social and physical well-being has been significantly compromised. The Canadian government (both provincial and federal) has implemented coercive and draconian vaccination policies, limiting the freedoms of the unvaccinated across various parts of society.

Much of my social life in Vancouver has been restricted and my ability to maintain physical fitness—a preventative measure that reduces risk of serious Covid illness—has been radically hampered. With the rest of unvaccinated Canadians over 12 years of age, I am barred from exercising at a gym, going to nightclubs, bars, large gatherings, and weddings. Worst, I am now landlocked in Canada and unable to leave the country to do media appearances in the United States and visit my family in India. I was recently planning to go to Florida to do Ben Shapiro’s show, but the government won’t even let me board a domestic flight.

In what world is this fair?

Under governmental pressure, public organizations have also stepped up their efforts in mandating vaccination for the young. In Ontario, Canada the biggest youth hockey league (OMHA) recently mandated all players 12 and over to be vaccinated. OMHA President Bob Hill gave a statement on the league’s decision:

“We know that the environment around return to play is a real concern for a large proportion of hockey families …. Our game is played in an indoor environment where there can be close contact, and we must do everything possible to reduce the risk of any transmission around the rink. It is the duty for our players, our officials and our communities.”

Unless one is willing to give their child an insufficiently tested booster shot on a likely 6-month basis, such a rationale being used to push child vaccine mandates falls apart under closer scrutiny. Vaccine efficacy against infection significantly drops over time (an idea which up until last summer was considered right-wing conspiracy). A study published in The Lancet showed a 55 percent reduction in vaccine effectiveness against infection five months post-vaccination, a trend which spirals downward over time. Any public benefit that child vaccination would bring is temporary and short-lived.

I asked Dr. Mike Hart (known for his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast), one of my consulting physicians who runs a top medical clinic in Ontario, what he thought about such a mandate:

“I don’t think this is a good policy. For vulnerable populations, vaccines make sense; but for young healthy people, the risks of the vaccine may outweigh the benefits.

“The risk of myocarditis from COVID is much higher than the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine in the general population, but in younger cohorts, the best available evidence suggests that’s not true.”

Unfortunately, medical experts such as Dr. Hart who consider both the costs and benefits of the vaccine have been marginalized by spokespeople of the medical establishment who are bizarrely devoted to vaccinating everyone regardless of their individual risk-benefit proposition.

When CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and was repeatedly asked about myocarditis risk in young males, he responded with the claim that most myocarditis patients experience mild symptoms and recover quickly. When celebrity physician Dr. Oz was asked the same question by FOX 29 Philadelphia earlier this year, he replied in nearly identical fashion: myocarditis is a mild, easily curable medical condition and shouldn’t discourage healthy male teenagers from receiving the vaccine.

However, myocarditis has long been documented as a cause of chronic fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pain, leading to disruptions in physical activity. A number of top cardiologists across the country—such as Dr. John Mandrola, Dr. Amy Kontorovich, and Dr. Venk Murthy—have publicly spoken out against minimization of vaccine-induced myocarditis.

According to Dr. Kontorovich, professor of medicine and cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,

“[M]any of those affected are young people who were previously healthy and are now on three or more heart medications and potentially out of work due to symptoms, even if their heart function is ‘back to normal.’”

University of Michigan cardiologist Dr. Venk Murthy has also noted,

“People with myocarditis are usually counseled to limit activity, placed on 1 or more meds and are at lifetime increased risk of cardiac complications. This can have profound consequences. … [They] are typically told to limit activity for several months, sometimes longer. This means no sports. Some kids are told not to carry books to school.”

In attempts to downplay these real, quantifiable risks, those with the most powerful voices in the medical community perform glaringly disprovable sleight-of-hand distortions of the scientific research on mainstream networks. When discussing his viral JRE appearance on Erin Burnett’s CNN program, Dr. Sanjay Gupta addressed the public concern of myocarditis for vaccinating teenagers by presenting a study finding infection-induced myocarditis poses a greater risk compared to the vaccine.

A cursory reading of the study reveals it is irrelevant to the cost-benefit analysis of vaccinating healthy young males. The post-vaccination myocarditis rate of 2.7 per 100,000 people is derived from a highly diverse population (in age and gender) with a median age of 38 years in the study. Moreover, the specific age group among the highest at risk of myocarditis—12 to 15 year olds—was not included in the studied population. The alarming concern is with young males specifically, not the general population. And yet, the CNN segment closed with Erin Burnett summarizing this total falsehood based on Dr. Gupta’s stunningly dishonest analysis of the issue:

“The number one [vaccine] risk you do hear about for young boys is myocarditis. You’re saying you have about five times greater risk of getting that from Covid than the vaccine. I think that’s an incredibly powerful, just basic statistic for people to know.”

Another viral clip of Joe Rogan talking about myocarditis has been exploited by the media to promote their universal vaccination agenda:

The study in the article Rogan looks at finding a higher risk of infection-induced myocarditis than from the vaccine is severely flawed. As practicing physician and epidemiologist Tracy Høeg has pointed out, the authors of the study vastly underestimate both the incidence of Covid infections (thereby exaggerating the infection risk) and post-vaccine myocarditis. The latter is underestimated by a factor of three or four at least.

As a result, the authors fallaciously conclude post-infection myocarditis poses a higher risk than post-vaccine myocarditis in young males.

The aforementioned pre-print by Oxford researchers published last month is the most comprehensive, robust, and rigorous analysis of relative myocarditis risk.

Neither the risk of Covid or vaccine side effects is equally distributed across the population. While the general risk is minuscule, the individual risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis in young males between the ages of 18 and 24 is roughly 1 in 2,000 according to a recent study by top infectious disease physician Dr. Katie A. Sharff. According to this calculation, one million administrations of the vaccine in this age group would yield 500 cases of heart inflammation in kids who were otherwise at near-zero risk of Covid.

Supporting the vaccine means honestly discussing the real risks of vaccination in specific demographics—without either agenda-driven minimization or exaggeration. Obfuscating, downplaying, and misleading the public, on the other hand, undermines trust in the vaccine—a miraculous scientific innovation that has transformed the course of the pandemic by preventing millions of deaths and cases of severe disease.

Honesty, nuance, and compassion are especially needed when it comes to personal health choices. We are only born with one body and we must make medically informed decisions at our own volition without governmental coercion or political pressure.

More here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/the-truth-about-vaccine-induced-myocarditis_4220643.html

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Surgical face masks make people look more attractive, new study finds

Striding up to greet someone for the first time with half your face obscured, doesn't exactly fill you with meet-cute confidence.

But a new study by British academics suggests that protective face masks can make you more attractive — particularly the blue surgical kind.

Seven months after masks became mandatary in the United Kingdom, researchers at Cardiff University were curious to know whether the pandemic had altered perceptions of attractiveness.

Cardiff University school of psychology's Michael Lewis, the study's co-author and an expert in the psychology of faces, spoke about the findings after the pandemic began.

"Research carried out before the pandemic found medical face masks reduce attractiveness," Dr Lewis said.

"So, we wanted to test whether this had changed since face coverings became ubiquitous and [to] understand whether the type of mask had any effect."

The study — published in the peer-reviewed journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications — asked 43 women to rate the attractiveness of 40 male faces, with and without different types of masks and coverings.

Dr Lewis said they were surprised by the results, which indicated an overall sentiment of mask positivity.

"Our study suggests faces are considered most attractive when covered by medical face masks," he said.

"This may be because we're used to healthcare workers wearing blue masks and now we associate these with people in caring or medical professions."

In their pre-pandemic research, participants had said they associated masks with disease and would avoid people who wore them.

But the research conducted in February 2021 — which will be continued to see if the results are true for both genders — also found that faces were considered significantly more attractive when covered by cloth masks than when not covered at all.

"The current research shows the pandemic has changed our psychology in how we perceive the wearers of masks," Dr Lewis said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-18/covid-mask-attractive-study-pandemic-dating/100763642

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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