The topic caused tension during a Joe Rogan podcast earlier this month but has now been fully explained by one of Australia’s top cardiologists.
One of Australia’s top cardiologists has dispelled a common misconception about the link between Covid vaccinations and myocarditis – inflammation of the heart muscle.
Associate Professor Raj Puranik, a Royal Prince Alfred Hospital consultant cardiologist, spoke on ABC Radio’s Afternoons with Josh Szeps following the host’s run-in with podcaster Joe Rogan earlier this month.
The duo’s conversation gained viral attention after Szeps spectacularly fact-checked Rogan, who has controversial opinions about the vaccines, during an appearance on his podcast.
Their exchange became moderately heated when discussing whether young people were more susceptible to myocarditis caused by the vaccine or a Covid infection.
Dr Puranik outlined last week why the latter was true, and why spreading information suggesting otherwise was highly problematic.
He explained how unvaccinated people who suffered myocarditis from Covid were more likely to die, because the virus presented foreign spike protein at doses the body had never seen before and was therefore incapable of managing.
Vaccinated people on the other hand already had mechanisms in place from the vaccine, meaning if they did become infected, their body would be capable of fighting it.
Dr Puranik detailed how Covid presents the spike protein – a protein its never seen before – to the body, and as part of the body’s response, inflammation in the chest is induced.
The reaction explains why some people experience upper or lower respiratory tract infections, which can spread to the lining of the artery to the heart muscle.
“So when people say [myocarditis] is vaccine-related, what’s happening is that the mRNA vaccine enters your body and disappears in a couple of days or even hours really, and it turns on your own body’s machinery to produce this protein that is foreign to your body, and then your body responds to it,” Dr Puranik said.
“The really important issue here is that if you developed myocarditis after a vaccine, were you to have seen this protein from Covid itself, it could have killed you.
“It could have been lethal at the doses of virus and spike protein generated by the infection.”
Dr Puranik highlighted that he would consider a mild case of heart inflammation in response to the vaccine a far better outcome than getting Covid while being unvaccinated.
“If you’re an unvaccinated person at present, you’ve got a one in 50 chance of dying from Covid, and a one in five chance of being in hospital. That’s across the whole population,” he said.
Szeps later took to Twitter with the key points he drew from the interview, most significantly the overriding fact that people who experienced heart inflammation from a vaccine, would have almost certainly got it worse from Covid.
He referenced data out of Israel, where mRNA was the main vaccine, that suggested the spike protein that causes vaccine-induced myocarditis would cause the same condition, just more severe, if it came from Covid.
“To be clear: whoever gets heart inflammation from Moderna would’ve almost certainly got it worse from Covid. The issue arises from the spike protein itself. That’s why we don’t see myocarditis from non-MRNA vaccines like Astra Zeneca,” he explained.
“Some say: Why not eliminate the risk altogether by using a non-MRNA vaccine in young males? Sure. Go for it. But as a general claim, the risk of a young person getting myocarditis from a vaccine is less than their getting it from a bout of Covid.”
The discussion comes after Australia’s medicines regulator confirmed the first cases of rare heart inflammation after booster vaccines.
As of January 9, there have been six reports of likely myocarditis – four after Pfizer and two after Moderna, according to the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA).
Myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, or inflammation of the lining around the heart, are serious but rare side effects associated with mRNA vaccines.
According to the TGA, myocarditis – which it describes as “very rare” – is reported in about one to two out of every 100,000 people who receive Pfizer and two to three out of 100,000 who receive Moderna.
But it is more common after the second dose in teenage boys at 12 cases per 100,000 for Pfizer and 17 per 100,000 for Moderna, and young men under 30 at six per 100,000 for Pfizer and 12 per 100,000 for Moderna.
The TGA stresses that myocarditis is “often mild, and cases usually resolve after a few days with treatment and rest”, but about half of cases are admitted to hospital.
“Five people with confirmed myocarditis were treated in intensive care,” the TGA says.
“This represents about 1 per cent of all confirmed myocarditis cases. Most patients admitted to hospital were discharged within four days.”
Originally published as Cardiologist reveals myocarditis danger for unvaccinated people
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