A recently published scientific study found that incidents of heart inflammation after a COVID-19 vaccination is twice as high in the Moderna (mRNA-1273) vaccine as it is in the Pfizer (BNT162b2) vaccine and that on average, Moderna’s second-dose vaccine caused 269 cases of heart inflammation for every one million doses in males aged 18 to 29, while Pfizer’s rate was 58 per one million second doses in the same age group.
Young men as a demographic were by far the most adversely affected by a second dosage Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine.
“Postmarketing evaluations have linked myocarditis to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. However, few population-based analyses have directly compared the safety of the 2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccines,” the scientists wrote in their background introduction.
Among women aged 18 to 39, the rate of heart inflammation was 27.6 on average for the second-dose Moderna vaccination.
The rates of heart inflammation dropped in older males and in females. Rates in the general population are just two for every one million people in the population aged 18 to 39, which means vaccination increases the likelihood of heart inflammation.
Experts in the United States and abroad have stated that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are “causally linked” with myocarditis and pericarditis.
Out of 3.1 million people in the study who took either the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, 59 of them developed myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle and 41 developed pericarditis, inflammation of tissue near the heart.
The Moderna vaccine, however, gives the user a twofold increased chance of development of heart inflammation issues.
The study, “Comparative Risk of Myocarditis/Pericarditis Following Second Doses of BNT162b2 and mRNAN-1273 Coronavirus Vaccines,” was led by Naveed Janjua, epidemiologist and executive director of analytics at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, and was funded by the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) and the Provincial Collaborative Network (PCN) Investigators, before published by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).
“Conclusions”
“Myocarditis/pericarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines is rare, but we observed a 2- to 3-fold higher odds among individuals who received mRNA-1273 vs BNT162b2. The rate of myocarditis following mRNA-1273 receipt is highest among younger men (age 18-39 years) and does not seem to be present at older ages. Our findings may have policy implications regarding the choice of vaccine offered.”