People who receive a COVID-19 shot are at increased risk of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle,1 and pericarditis, which is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states it’s “actively monitoring reports of myocarditis and pericarditis after COVID-19 vaccination”2 and investigating long-term effects.3
The public deserves to know the truth about just how often myocarditis, which can cause heart failure, abnormal heartbeat and sudden death, occurs after a COVID-19 injection. However, the CDC isn’t willing to share this critical data. In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the public health agency sent back a fully redacted document.
CDC Fully Redacts 148-Page Report on Post-Jab Myocarditis
The Epoch Times sent a FOIA request to the CDC, looking to investigate a 148-page report on myocarditis after COVID-19 injection. In response, the CDC sent a fully redacted copy, along with a second document that was “mostly redacted.”4
In a tweet that included an image of the blank document, Epoch Times reporter Zachary Stieber wrote sarcastically, “Excited to dive into a new FOIA on the CDC’s long-term study of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination.”5 The Vigilant Fox added, “There’s obviously something very damning that they’re trying to hide.”6
Others also expressed shock and dismay that the CDC, which bills itself as “the nation’s leading science-based, data-driven, service organization that protects the public’s health,”7 would be so blatantly deceptive. Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. tweeted:8
“The level of arrogance and contempt for the public in releasing a 100% redacted document is staggering. The CDC is thumbing their nose at the Freedom of Information Act. Without transparency, there is no such thing as democracy. When I’m President, the CDC won’t get to decide what the public can see. Everything will be out in the open, and you won’t need a FOIA request to read any taxpayer-funded data.”
It’s not the first time a government agency has tried to keep the public in the dark regarding COVID-19 shots. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Pfizer attempted to hide the COVID-19 shot clinical trial data for 75 years, but the FDA was ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to release redacted versions of trial documents on a much faster schedule.
As part of the court order, 80,000 pages of documents related to the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shots were released on June 1, 2022.9 Among those documents were case report forms revealing that deaths and severe adverse events took place during Phase 3 trials, but, as reported by Children’s Health Defense, Pfizer had “a trend of classifying almost all adverse events — and in particular severe adverse events — as being ‘not related’ to the vaccine.”10
120 FOIA Requests — Vaccine Data on 10 Million People Still Kept Secret
Lack of transparency is a common thread for all vaccines, not just COVID-19 injections. A U.S. Senate roundtable discussion, hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson, tackled the taboo topic — including why public health agencies have not studied the health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children — and have refused to make data on the topic available to the public.11
“They do not publish the results [or] let any independent scientist in to look at that information,” Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, said. “They refuse to publish the results and they really know why. It’s because the bloated vaccination schedule is responsible and is, I would say, in part responsible for the epidemic of chronic disorders that we see in children in the U.S.”12
Hooker testified that the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “report to Congress on the state of vaccine safety in the U.S. every two years.” However, he said HHS has “never submitted a vaccine safety report to Congress.”13
Hooker also reported that health agencies have data on health outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated children, but they refuse to make it public. The data, which includes close to 30 years’ worth of information on more than 10 million people, is housed in a database called Vaccine Safety Datalink.
Despite Hooker making more than 120 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and going through “congressional representatives to get the Vaccine Safety Datalink itself,” he says, “It is simply something that they will not do.”14 He believes financial conflicts of interest are the reason why:15
“CDC buys and sells $ 5 billion worth of vaccines a year through the Vaccines for Children program. They also spend half a billion dollars a year … advertising and through public relationship campaigns for vaccinations in general, as compared to a woeful budget of $ 50 million that is being used for vaccine safety every year.”
Hooker also wasn’t surprised when the CDC released the fully redacted document related to myocarditis and COVID-19 injections, describing it as “very typical of CDC as they have been lying and hiding since the Tuskegee experiment and before.”16 He stated:17
“Their relationship with the truth is dubious at best and they are committed to hiding the very obvious connection between COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis as they have from the beginning of the rollout of the vaccine.
The CDC knew of this connection as early as January 2021, just weeks after the release of the vaccine, and has never been forthcoming regarding it. It is criminal that they continue to defraud the American public.”
Pfizer and CDC Knew COVID Shots Increased Myocarditis Risk but Withhold Data
Project Veritas also reported on leaked internal Pfizer documents, written by eight scientists in Pfizer’s Drug Safety Research & Development division. The papers revealed Pfizer was aware that people who receive a COVID-19 shot are at increased risk of myocarditis, and stated:18
“Onset was typically within several days after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (from Pfizer or Moderna), and cases have occurred more often after the second dose than the first dose … Since April 2021, increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), particularly in adolescents and young adults (CDC 2021).
The pattern of cases conform, as per the label, to a pattern of myocarditis cases occurring in majority of young males below 29 years of age within the first two weeks post-vaccination. The reasons for male predominance in myocarditis and pericarditis incidence post COVID-19 vaccination remain unknown.”
While Pfizer said it wasn’t certain of the mechanism behind the increased myocarditis risk in males, possibilities identified included the following, according to Children’s Health Defense:19
Direct cardiotoxicity | Acute/active viral infection | Genetic predisposition and pre-existing conditions |
A prior history of myocarditis | Immune-mediated mechanisms and vaccine-associated autoimmunity | Molecular mimicry to the spike protein |
Sex-related effects |
Children’s Health Defense further reported that another set of CDC documents suggest data regarding post-jab myocarditis was withheld: “Heavily redacted CDC documents obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request indicate the agency provided an undercounted figure of post-COVID-19-vaccination myocarditis cases to Israel’s Ministry of Health in early 2021.”20
What Does the Science Say on Myocarditis After COVID Shots?
The data on myocarditis may be particularly damning if the CDC felt the need to redact every word over 148 pages. As it stands, a number of studies have tried to quantify the damage, with varying estimates on just how common myocarditis is after a COVID-19 injection.
A real-world case-control study from Israel21 revealed that the Pfizer COVID-19 jab is associated with a threefold increased risk of myocarditis,22 leading to the condition at a rate of 1 to 5 events per 100,000 persons.23 Another study used data from the BC COVID-19 Cohort study, which included more than 10.2 million doses of mRNA COVID-19 shots given to people 12 and over.
Cases of myocarditis that occurred seven to 21 days after the shots and required hospitalization were examined. While seven myocarditis cases would be expected within seven days, the study found 99 cases among those who’d received the shots.
Within 21 days post-vaccination, 141 cases of myocarditis occurred. The expected rate was 20. This worked out to a myocarditis rate of 1.37 per 100,000 COVID-19 doses, compared with an expected rate of 0.39 per 100,000 people who did not get the shots.24 Rates of myocarditis after COVID-19 shots were highest among:25
- Males
- Those aged 18 to 29 years
- People who received a Moderna COVID-19 shot
- People who received two doses
The rate of myocarditis among males aged 18 to 29 who received Moderna’s COVID-19 shot was 22.9 per 100,000.26 Other research has suggested that heart muscle damage due to COVID-19 infection would have been greater without the availability of the shots.27 However, this claim was scrutinized because it only involved studies that involved patients hospitalized due to COVID-19.
By examining data from Germany and Switzerland on COVID-19 infections and the frequency of elevated troponin levels, a marker of heart damage, in both hospitalized and non-hospitalized individuals, it was found that the risk of heart muscle damage from COVID-19 shots may be higher than from natural COVID-19 infections among the general population.28
In fact, Children’s Health Defense reported, the study revealed that, “regardless of myocarditis severity, there were 71.7 times as many myocarditis cases among the vaccinated as among those hospitalized for COVID-19.”29
The concerning research, coupled with the CDC’s blank document in response to a FOIA request, will only serve to further erode the public’s trust in government health agencies.
As cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told Children’s Health Defense, “The CDC and public health agencies cannot wonder why the medical community and public at large has lost all trust in their honesty, integrity, and competency. Producing this document in response to a request is a disgrace.”30