Covid injections could increase the risk of sudden cardiac deaths in young women, official UK data revealed today.
Government analysts scoured data from England’s historic rollout to re-verify the safety profile of vaccines in people under 30.
No significant increase in deaths among those vaccinated was discovered, debunking one of the biggest current conspiracy theories surrounding the lock-and-ban scheme.
But when the results were broken down further, the experts found an elevated risk of heart-related deaths in women from one type of injection.
Data collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that women who received an injection without mRNA were 3.5 times more likely to die from such ailments within 12 weeks of vaccination.
This chart shows the increased risk of cardiac death in young people in England after a covid vaccine based on ONS analysis. The colored lines represent the risk registered through the data. Each parenthesis shows the lowest and highest estimates with the center point representing the overall average. A result greater than 1 indicates an increased risk of cardiac death, while a result less than 1 is a reduced risk. Young women (pink lines) who received a covid shot without mRNA saw a 3.5-fold increased risk of death in the 12 weeks after vaccination. While increases in deaths in men (blue) were also seen for injections without RNA and in some estimates for mRNA vaccines, the ONS said the range of data was too large to consider as evidence of increased risk.
This was compared to after that time period, as opposed to the unvaccinated.
Looking at the numbers in this way allowed the ONS team to spot any notable links to vaccination.
Some vaccine-related deaths may have been omitted from the official figures, hence the need to look at the data differently.
The mRNA-free injections include those made by AstraZeneca and Novavax, which were the only two available during the study period.
Although, data on specific vaccine brands were not included in the analysis. In the US, Johnson and Johnson was one of the mRNA-free injections used.
writing in the diary Naturethe ONS team concluded that 11 cardiac deaths in young women can be attributed to injections without mRNA.
However, the study does not directly prove that any vaccine caused deaths.
The deaths could, for example, be due to an unrelated health condition or even a covid infection itself, as the virus is known to cause similar heart effects.
The researchers said that young women who received injections without mRNA in the study period tended to be classified as clinically vulnerable, so they were given priority for injections.
This factor could have explained their increased risk of death, the team suggested.
No similar elevated risk was found in men. However, the academics did not offer a reason why, as that was beyond the scope of the analysis.
They also did not discover any evidence that mRNA injections, such as those carried out by Pfizer and Moderna, carried such a risk.
That refutes a conspiracy theory beloved by anti-vaxxers that mRNA injections are responsible for a wave of “sudden” deaths.
Just 75 Britons have died from Covid vaccines, official statistics show. It equates to approximately one death for every 2.1 million punctures spread across the UK.
In fact, the study, which also examined the overall risk of death after testing positive for Covid, found that unvaccinated young people were significantly more likely to die than those vaccinated from ‘all causes’.
The investigators chose to look at the 12-week period after vaccination, as this was the original time period established between vaccination doses.
The analysis was based on data from December 8, 2020, when Covid shots were first implemented, through May 25 of last year.
It included people in England between the ages of 12 and 29, and the researchers looked at this group specifically in response to some studies pointing to the risk of heart disease in young people after Covid vaccination.
While credited with saving the nation from endless lockdown and thousands of lives, covid vaccines, like any medical treatment, are not without risk.
For example, mRNA vaccines can, in extremely rare cases, cause myocarditis. This inflammation of the heart is particularly a risk for young men and children.
And AstraZeneca’s jab was withdrawn for those under 40 in the UK in April 2021 after it was linked to a rare but life-threatening risk of developing blood clots.
Vahé Nafilyan, chief statistician for the ONS, said overall the study showed that mRNA vaccines, which have now been used for the majority of vaccinated British youth, are generally safe.
“We found no evidence that the risk of cardiac or all-cause death is increased in the weeks following vaccination with mRNA vaccines,” he said.
However, he added that they found that young women who received a covid shot without mRNA were 3.52 times more likely to have cardiac death within 12 weeks.
While a 3.52-fold increased risk seems large, one should keep in mind that the actual number of deaths is estimated to be relatively small.
This is equivalent to six cardiac deaths for every 100,000 women vaccinated with at least a first dose of an mRNA-free vaccine.
But Nafilyan said the context in which those blows were delivered and to whom should be considered.
“Vaccination with the main mRNA-free vaccine used in the UK was stopped for young people due to safety concerns in April 2021,” he said.
‘And most of the young people who received it would have been prioritized for clinical vulnerability or for being health workers.
‘Therefore, these results cannot be generalized to the population as a whole.
“While vaccination carries some risks, these must be weighed in light of its benefits.”
The ONS analysis did not speculate why women appeared to be at higher risk of cardiac death after their first mRNA-free Covid injection compared to men.
While the data recorded that men had an estimated 1.18 increased risk of cardiac death after their first mRNA-free covid shot, the ONS said the evidence was not strong enough to establish a link, as that these few deaths could be due to chance.
It should also be noted that because the overall probability of cardiac death for the young is so small in the first place, any increase may seem dramatic.
The ONS analysis also included data on the risk of death after a positive Covid test for young people with both needlesticks and non-stickshots.
Those who did not have the Covid vaccine had a 2.5 times greater risk of death from any cause, while in comparison, those who received the vaccine had only a 1.9 times greater risk of dying.
The ONS did not look at cardiac deaths specifically among vaccinated people who tested positive due to “insufficient data.”
Other studies have shown that covid vaccines greatly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death among the general population, particularly for those most at risk, such as the elderly.
Taken as a whole, the study shatters the main claims of anti-vaxxers who have wrongly said that people who received the covid mRNA vaccines are dying en masse.
However, a limitation of the study is that some deaths that occurred in the period analyzed might not be included due to ongoing investigations by a medical examiner.
Professor Adam Finn, a pediatrics expert at the University of Bristol, said the ONS study “raised as many questions as it answered”.
“The findings are somewhat unexpected, as concerns about rare cardiac side effects, specifically myocarditis and pericarditis, have so far been particularly associated with second doses of the mRNA vaccine in men, especially when the dosing interval was short, while that the signal reported here is mainly in non-first doses of mRNA in women,’ he said.
A 2022 study led by academics at Imperial College London suggests that Covid vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives in the first year since countries began rolling out the shots, the majority in wealthy nations.
However, he said the data also showing that the risk disappeared by the second dose was “reassuring.”
Professor Finn, a member of the UK’s vaccine advisory committee, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), said more details on reported cardiac deaths were ultimately needed.
“The next and most pressing issue that needs to be addressed is gathering more detailed information about what the nature of the reported cardiac events actually was, as this would help us begin to understand what is actually seen in these numbers and could help guide future vaccine policy and design,’ he said.
While AstraZeneca’s jab was withdrawn specifically for young people in April 2021, it was effectively withdrawn in the UK and no further doses were ordered by the government.
This was based on advice from the JCVI who have not included AstraZeneca on their list of recommended jabs for booster campaigns.
There are currently two mRNA-free Covid injections approved for use in the UK.
These are the punctures from Novavax and Sanofi/GSK.
The UK drug watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has not received any safety reports on the Sanofi/GSK jab and its use. it was only approved in December of last year.
Novavax was approved in February of last year and deployed 1,200 times during the fall boost campaign, with 57 safety reports.
The ONS said it would continue to monitor data on the results of Covid vaccines in the future.
Some 75 deaths from jab-related side effects are known to have occurred in the UK..
