When reports first surfaced in 2021 that some cases of myocarditis — the inflammation of the heart muscle, potentially leading to blood clots and heart attack or stroke — were potentially associated with the Covid-19 vaccine, the corporate media and its fact-checkers were quick to label them as misinformation, saying the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh its small risks.
A year later, though, the media can no longer deny that what they called misinformation actually has data to back it up. As Matt Shapiro detailed in his Substack post on the matter, “Last year’s misinformation on vaccine-associated myocarditis in young men is this year’s well-established fact.”
According to Vaccine Safety Datalink surveillance data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted in 2022, within a week of receiving the “Dose 2 Primary Series” of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, there were 14 verified cases of myocarditis or pericarditis among the 102,091 males aged 16-17 who got the shot. Among the nearly 206,000 12-15-year-old males who received the same series, 31 cases were confirmed within a week.
These numbers might seem small or meaningless, but in context, they represent a significant departure from last year’s conventional wisdom pushed by health bureaucrats and parroted by the media: In 2021, the CDC’s reported rates of myocarditis during the 0-7 day “risk period” following vaccination were significantly lower compared to recent numbers.
For instance, in August last year, the CDC reported 42.6 per million cases and 71.5 per million cases for 12-15 and 16-17-year-old males, respectively, but now the health agency admits those incidence rates are actually 150.5 per million for the younger group and 137.1 per million for the older. Among 16- and 17-year-old males, the incidence rate jumps to a whopping 188 per million following the first booster, with 9 of the 47,874 developing heart inflammation in the week after that shot.
While rates from the latest CDC study are “3-5 times higher for young men than what the CDC was reporting this time last year,” other health experts, whom the media discredited, were ahead of the curve. Data from a study conducted by Tracy Hoeg, MD, Ph.D., and others in 2021 aligns with the latest CDC numbers from 2022.
The doctors reported a rate of 94 cases of “cardiac adverse events” per million for 16-17-year-old males and 162 per million for 12-15-year-old males. While this is compatible with the latest CDC study, the corporate media and its fact-checkers labeled it misinformation when it was published last year.
Following the Hoeg study’s publication, the British Medical Journal claimed critics called the study “deeply flawed” and said it delivered “an antivaccine message.” PolitiFact reported that posts about myocarditis risk on Facebook “were flagged as part” of the platform’s “efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.” Big Tech used these so-called fact-checks to censor good-faith Americans, dissenting medical experts, and even lawmakers who questioned the CDC’s vaccinations-for-all narrative.
For example, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., was labeled “fundamentally dangerous” in his efforts to let Americans discuss adverse reactions they experienced after receiving Covid shots. The Wisconsin senator’s YouTube channel was also temporarily suspended in November 2021 — for the fifth time — after posting “a video of a panel on vaccine-related injuries” that was deemed “Covid misinformation.” Yet adverse effects do occur, as even the CDC has acknowledged, including the aforementioned vaccine-associated myocarditis.
Efforts to quash alternative research prevented members of the public from considering this information, which would have allowed them to make better-informed decisions about the Covid jab for themselves and their children. As Hoeg wrote on Twitter, “If we hadn’t been vilified [sic] as ‘anti-vaxxers’ spreading ‘mis’ & ‘disinformation’, how would the conversation around minimizing the chance of this adverse event have changed & how many cases of myo/pericarditis in young males would have been prevented over the last year?”
Concern about myocarditis was not the only Covid-related content to be decried as “misinformation” and nuked from the public square though. The corporate media, health bureaucrats, and even President Biden repeated the narrative that Covid vaccines prevent the transmission of the virus. In November 2021, USA Today ran an article stating, “vaccines work against contracting, spreading Covid-19,” fact-checking social media posts that raised concern about “whether the shots work[ed].” The vaccine-hesitant and those who resisted sweeping mandates were smeared as “anti-vaxxers.”
But as The Federalist reported, the ruling regime was the real purveyor of misinformation. In January 2022, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky finally admitted on CNN that the vaccines can’t “prevent transmission.”
Many pandemic concerns that were once labeled misinformation have since proved to be true, such as learning loss due to school closures, the effectiveness of natural immunity, the ineffectiveness of cloth face coverings, and the social and economic harms of mass lockdowns, just to name a few. The ruling class being wrong about myocarditis risk is just the latest in its long list of misinforming the public about what’s misinformation — to the detriment of free speech, institutional trust, and public health.
*Source: New CDC Data Shows Covid Shot Myocarditis Concerns Are Legit